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Anyone Interested in Articles on Using PyPy to Create New Languages? (espians.com)
77 points by tav on June 2, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 15 comments



Yes, absolutely. A project I've wanted to run with for a bit is writing a Scheme implementation in PyPy. It would provide a wonderful way to better learn the parts of Scheme I don't know, and use Scheme alongside Python code (which is nice, because it would mean I could conveniently use Sexps as a data language and do the data handling in Scheme, but do the real work in Python, for example). I'd been looking into some of it idly, but as you say, there isn't much.

More significantly, one of the projects I've been working on really requires a new language, and while I could implement using, say, PyParsing and so on, having free JIT is really nice.


I've actually been working on a Scheme to Python bridge, but it's currently very primitive and exists mainly to allow embedding the Python interpreter in PLT Scheme.

http://github.com/jasonbaker/pyscheme


I'd love to see this. Python just has better libraries in the most important areas: numerical computation, machine learning, etc., than any other platform. It's main downside is that you can only get at them from one language.

Can't wait to see a lisp on the Python platform.


Very much.

One thing I would be interested in hearing that I haven't heard anyone mention is how far it seems like a language can reasonably stray from Python without essentially hitting its head on PyPy at every turn. For example, functional languages have a hard time on the JVM due to its lack of tail call elimination.


Likewise interested, particularly if PyPy can support multicore concurrency.


I asked about this on a separate PyPy thread, and got a useful answer from magcius: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1375785

But yes, I'd be interested!


Most definitely. It would be interesting to see how this compares to using parrot as your platform. The two approaches differ completely in ideology, and I wonder what would be easier to develop on.


Yes, very much so. I'm currently designing and implementing a language in Python (designing and implementing it together, to see what features work). I'm considering eventually implementing it on the JVM, to take advantage of Java's multitude of libraries, but PyPy might be another option.


Such capabilities were in Smalltalk for a long time. Not much was done with them.


Smalltalk doesn't have the library breadth for people to be attracted to its virtual machine.


Chicken-egg. Parcplace made a conscious decision to be a boutique secret weapon of the Fortune 500.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not poo-poohing the capability. Instead, consider it the warning of someone whose been down the road before.

The problems won't be technical -- they'll be social!


I would love to see _why's Potion implemented in PyPy. You could call it Pytion.


Pothon (poe-thon) sounds better to me.


how about _whython?


Yes, please.




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