02 May 2011, 09:21

JIT powered Python engine PyPy is "catching up"

PyPy logo The PyPy developers have announced the release of version 1.5 of their "very compliant" Python interpreter with integrated tracing just-in-time (JIT) compiler. The highlight of this release is that PyPy now has the features of version 2.7.1 CPython, the standard C interpreter for Python, and the standard library associated with that version. The developers estimate that the new version is 25% faster than the previous one; detailed benchmarks are available at the PyPy Speed Center.

Other improvements include support added to the tracing JIT for loop invariant code motion which improves the performance of numerical calculations within tight loops, and the cProfile profiler now works with the JIT. PyPy's CPython extension support has been improved to the point where it is now possible to use Tkinter and IDLE with the interpreter.

The JIT compiler version of PyPy works on Intel based systems with 32- and 64-bit Linux and Mac OS X. There is a 32-bit Windows version in beta but no support for 64-bit Windows. Binaries for version 1.5 of PyPy, source code and other variants of PyPy (such as Stackless and Sandboxed), are available from the PyPy download page. PyPy is available under the MIT Licence.

(djwm)

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