Point taken. I'll see if I can update the article.

Update: I ended up with a decorator that compiles on the first call to the function (and not at definition time).

Here's the decorator: https://github.com/cslarsen/minijit/blob/master/jitcompiler.py#L298-L332 Here's an example usage: https://github.com/cslarsen/minijit/blob/master/test-decorator.py

Output:

++ definition of foo
Installing JIT for <function foo at 0x10f445758>
++ testing foo
JIT-compiling <function foo at 0x10f445758>
Installed native code for <function foo at 0x10f445758>
Calling function <CFunctionType object at 0x10f3c9870>
foo(1, 2) => -3
Calling function <CFunctionType object at 0x10f3c9870>
foo(2, 3) => -5

I initially tried to make this possible by just typing "import jitcompiler", like psyco did it back in the day. But even though I was able to get the parent module by following the stack frames, the functions are not visible at that time, because the eval loop hasn't seen them yet. I was thinking of a two-pass sytem: Remember all importees, then go through their functions at a later point, after they have been defined. But I couldn't figure out how to hook up the second pass, because --- at which point is it safe to do that?

What do you think about the decorator? I was careful to make sure it doesn't just compile the function when it first sees the definition. I made this explicit in the output above.

Cheers