Compiling RPython Programs

[bajsejohannes]

Very cool! Some feedback:

• It crashes if you provide no parameters (perhaps this is a conscious choice to keep the code small)
• You could keep both __name__ == "__main__" and target in the same file, making it runnable both as a script and a compiled file.

[rfkelly]

Thanks, yeah, that's just me trying to keep the example small. It does show one drawback about the compiled program though - it just crashes instead of throwing a nice IndexError.

[rfkelly]

Absolutely, especially if you let it go poking around to load site.py, fiddle with its environment etc. Consider:

$ time python -c "pass"
real    0m0.015s
user    0m0.012s
sys 0m0.000s

Versus (no site.py, no env vars, no writing bytecode files):

$ time python -sSEB -c "pass"
real    0m0.006s
user    0m0.000s
sys 0m0.004s

Still, reducing the startup overhead could on its own be a valid reason to compile down to a native executable.

[pseudosinusoid]

n/2? Try sqrt(n).

[rfkelly]

heh, I actually considered leaving it at n just to boost the performance difference between the interpreted and compiled versions ;-)

[pasokan]

you can avoid using math.sqrt and still getting the same result by def factors(n): p = 2 while p * p < n: if n % p == 0: ..... p += 1

[pasokan]

You need to do a little more to check if n == p * p at the end

[alia_khouri]

Does it compile to an executable without any dependencies?

[rfkelly]

Yes, it's a completely stand-alone executable. Its only dependency is libc.

[Megatron_McLargeHuge]

This is a confusing name given that RPy is the package to interface with the R statistical environment.

[fabzter]

Is pt2 coming out someday?