pypy-0.7.0: first PyPy-generated Python Implementations

What was once just an idea between a few people discussing on some nested mailing list thread and in a pub became reality … the PyPy development team is happy to announce its first public release of a fully translatable self contained Python implementation. The 0.7 release showcases the results of our efforts in the last few months since the 0.6 preview release which have been partially funded by the European Union:

  • whole program type inference on our Python Interpreter implementation with full translation to two different machine-level targets: C and LLVM

  • a translation choice of using a refcounting or Boehm garbage collectors

  • the ability to translate with or without thread support

  • very complete language-level compliance with CPython 2.4.1

What is PyPy (about)?

PyPy is a MIT-licensed research-oriented reimplementation of Python written in Python itself, flexible and easy to experiment with. It translates itself to lower level languages. Our goals are to target a large variety of platforms, small and large, by providing a compilation toolsuite that can produce custom Python versions. Platform, Memory and Threading models are to become aspects of the translation process - as opposed to encoding low level details into a language implementation itself. Eventually, dynamic optimization techniques - implemented as another translation aspect - should become robust against language changes.

Note that PyPy is mainly a research and development project and does not by itself focus on getting a production-ready Python implementation although we do hope and expect it to become a viable contender in that area sometime next year.

Where to start?

Getting started: https://codespeak.net/pypy/dist/pypy/doc/getting-started.html

PyPy Documentation: https://codespeak.net/pypy/dist/pypy/doc/

PyPy Homepage: https://codespeak.net/pypy/

The interpreter and object model implementations shipped with the 0.7 version can run on their own and implement the core language features of Python as of CPython 2.4. However, we still do not recommend using PyPy for anything else than for education, playing or research purposes.

Ongoing work and near term goals

PyPy has been developed during approximately 15 coding sprints across Europe and the US. It continues to be a very dynamically and incrementally evolving project with many one-week meetings to follow. You are invited to consider coming to the next such meeting in Paris mid October 2005 where we intend to plan and head for an even more intense phase of the project involving building a JIT-Compiler and enabling unique features not found in other Python language implementations.

PyPy has been a community effort from the start and it would not have got that far without the coding and feedback support from numerous people. Please feel free to give feedback and raise questions.

have fun,

the pypy team, of which here is a partial snapshot of mainly involved persons:

Armin Rigo, Samuele Pedroni, Holger Krekel, Christian Tismer, Carl Friedrich Bolz, Michael Hudson, Eric van Riet Paap, Richard Emslie, Anders Chrigstroem, Anders Lehmann, Ludovic Aubry, Adrien Di Mascio, Niklaus Haldimann, Jacob Hallen, Bea During, Laura Creighton, and many contributors …

PyPy development and activities happen as an open source project and with the support of a consortium partially funded by a two year European Union IST research grant. Here is a list of the full partners of that consortium:

Heinrich-Heine University (Germany), AB Strakt (Sweden) merlinux GmbH (Germany), tismerysoft GmbH(Germany) Logilab Paris (France), DFKI GmbH (Germany) ChangeMaker (Sweden), Impara (Germany)