[Cython] [SciPy-dev] Inclusion of cython code in scipy

[Robert Bradshaw]

On Apr 23, 2008, at 6:00 AM, Ondrej Certik wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 8:17 AM, Nathan Bell <wnbell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 6:19 PM, Anne Archibald
>>  <peridot.faceted at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>
>>>  What do people think about including cython code in scipy?
>>>
>>
>>  Writing a substantial amount of code in a special-purpose language
>>  like Cython is always risky.  Will Cython exist in 5,10,15 years?
>>
>>  I have little doubt that in 10 years I'll still be able to  
>> compile the
>>  C/C++ codes I develop today.  Furthermore, if Cython/SWIG/SciPy/ 
>> NumPy
>>  disappeared overnight I'd still have a decent library to work with.
>>  IMO using Cython for one-off application or wrappers is fine, but
>>  large-scale Cython implementation is probably a bad long-term
>>  approach.
>
> Isn't this a similar (if not the same) problem when writing your code
> using SWIG?
>
> Let's take sparsetools.i as an example, it also contains a lot of non
> python, non C code. So one needs to depend (and maintain!) SWIG. Well,
> Cython is a lot more lightweight and more robust solution imho.
>
> Of course it'd be great if the Cython code would also be a regular
> Python code, but that will still take some time. But they seem to like
> it, for example when I first learned about Cython, I told Robert and
> William -- why to use this ugly "for i from 1 <= i < dim:", why not to
> use the python way
> "for i in range(1, dim):"? And Robert has implemented this in less  
> than a month.
>
> The next step could be to generate Cython code from regular Python
> code with annotations in comments or strings imho.

Yes, one of our goals is to be able to compile pure Python, with type  
annotations in decorators. The "old style" cdef keywords will be  
around too.

> But even if Cython stays as yet another language -- it's still easier
> and less error prone than to write the C code by hand.

I am of the same opinion, and think Cython will be around for a long  
time (hopefully eventually as part of Python itself).

- Robert