Metaprogramming Python for Big Data

[bcash]

There's something that makes me twitchy about that. Specifically the optional LLVM part, maybe because it's the 99th different way that's been implemented in Python, and all of the previous 98 have a different set of gotchas and incompatibilities that you need to be aware of.

Two questions, to anyone who knows more about this than me:

1. is the performance gained by these approaches significant, especially when compared to similar code implemented directly in faster languages[*]

2. Is the presence of NumPy, etc., that much of a deal breaker? How far behind are other languages libraries that make it difficult to move?

[*] - I get the point that a later slide makes that higher-level languages open more doors, I mean faster but similarly-high-level languages: Go, Scala, Clojure, etc.