It was version 0.11.1 & 5yrs back, and I was in undergrad college.
We used to hack on the cython code all night. :)
I got very Poor Grades that whole term.
And I can't forget those days, we used to hack all night on cython code but missing very important college lectures!
I did not even know how to commit!
But, It was pure thrill. Those were the days, I badly miss today!
And surprisingly I also fixed a very critical bug, that was the very first bug I had fixed in my Life.
I started to realize, valuate & appreciate Open source & the reach of OSS!
cython changed my perception about software!
That marked my entry into OSS, and I was writing & optimizing for good code with standards and all the documentation. Until then I couldn't appreciate anything much of OSS.
* I literally danced around after I submitted that bug, and incidentally it got approved and committed too! :D
And it was the very early days of Cython Project <ver 0.11>
Hi again, fun to see our conversation from 5 years back pop up here! Thanks for sharing your story :-)
(For my part, my PhD already derailed most of my Cython efforts, and now I've started in a startup too, so chances are I won't be involved again for the foreseeable future. But Robert and Stefan are still at it as they were back then, and there's been some new ones coming too.)
What a nice moment, isn't it? And checking you back in HN after 5 long years!
Robert and Stefan, the guys behind Cython; admired them a lot for this day & for the places Cython has reached.
Also will never never forget the fact that - you reviewed my first Patch, that was 5yrs back! Cython 0.1 version :-) <Big smile>
History: Back in 2008 I read the book http://producingoss.com/ and was at the same time dealing with several forks of http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/python/Pyrex/ for use in my project http://sagemath.org. Inspired by producingoss, I came up with the name "Cython" during a brainstorming session with Tom Boothby, then made a website (cython.org), listed the three leaders of the various Pyrex forks as project leaders (one was my Ph.D. student), and crossed my fingers. It worked.
I've been playing with Cython recently and I'm really impressed with its compatibility with arbitrary Python code. It's possible to compile all of Tornado with only minor changes (for a ~25% speedup without any type annotations).
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/python-tornado/Kele7...
Cython (http://cython.org) is a language that makes writing C extensions for
the Python language as easy as Python itself. Cython is based on the
well-known Pyrex, but supports more cutting edge functionality and
optimizations.
The Cython language is very close to the Python language, but Cython
additionally supports calling C functions and declaring C types on variables
and class attributes. This allows the compiler to generate very efficient C
code from Cython code.
This makes Cython the ideal language for wrapping external C libraries, and
for fast C modules that speed up the execution of Python code.
I love this project. Fantastic way to write Python bindings for native libs or speed up computationally intensive code without having to write C yourself.
i use a lot of pyrex/cython to bind to libraries - it's so much faster to code in python. it's been a huge boon. having used swig, hand writing wrappers, and pyrex before i can say i much prefer cython.
I got very Poor Grades that whole term.
And I can't forget those days, we used to hack all night on cython code but missing very important college lectures!
I did not even know how to commit!
But, It was pure thrill. Those were the days, I badly miss today!
And surprisingly I also fixed a very critical bug, that was the very first bug I had fixed in my Life. I started to realize, valuate & appreciate Open source & the reach of OSS!
cython changed my perception about software!
That marked my entry into OSS, and I was writing & optimizing for good code with standards and all the documentation. Until then I couldn't appreciate anything much of OSS.
* I literally danced around after I submitted that bug, and incidentally it got approved and committed too! :D
And it was the very early days of Cython Project <ver 0.11>
http://trac.cython.org/cython_trac/ticket/203
And today when I checked Cython Project, I feel awesome within, all around my body; esp the way Cython has grown & is being consumed across!
Power of OSS!
We should be honoring and celebrating every project out there that has done so much to Humanity!