MetaPython

Exactly. Facebook literally maintains a python fork: https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder Google invented "NoSQL" before anyone else knew what it was, and all those "cloud" tools they used internally were obviously proprietary (except the ones they open sourced). Ex-Googlers I work with typically had to spend quite a bit of time re-adjusting to the "inferior" tools and processes in other companies. Microsoft invented their own development ecosystem, and the only reason it's "common" or "standard" in the tech community is because they sell it as a product. This is the same for Apple at least for iOS development, and Amazon for their cloud service offerings. When companies have millions of dollars to spend on maintaining a custom development environment that they think will give them a competitive edge, they will do it. It's the smal

Cinder (https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder) has Static Python bundled with it, which is pretty useful for replacing Cython. [disclaimer: I work on Cinder]

One minor clarification here: Cinder[1] is actually 100% compatible with C extensions (by virtue of being a fork of CPython). [1]: https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder

That wasn't my intended meaning, I don't think static typing is a "fad". I think the "new" typed languages (Go, Rust, Typescript) are more ergonomic than 90s-00s Java, C++, C#, as you said. This is also forcing them to improve, with features like type inference, sealed classes, records. I also think that the combination of gradual typing and type inference is playing a big role in the adoption. However, I called static typing a "trend", and I'll try to explain why. I think attempts to type Python, JS, Ruby and the popularity of Go and Rust are the natural consequences of people departing from the Java/C++ ecosystem 10-20 years earlier (for good reasons). Now they are rediscovering the good parts of this ecosystem (ease of deployment with binaries/fat jars, static typing, performance). Since Twitter, Github, Youtube, Shopify, Instagram, et

> I'm wondering why there isn't a corresponding project for Python. But there are various projects for Python. For example, there's Pyston [0] which was started by Dropbox. Or Cinder [1] which was started by Facebook. Or PyPy [2]. [0] https://github.com/pyston/pyston [1] https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder [2] https://www.pypy.org/

Is this going to incorporate the work done as part of https://blog.pyston.org/2020/10/28/pyston-v2-20-faster-pytho... or https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder ?

There was a different similar post a few days ago from Facebook and this one stems from Dropbox and they both are said to make Python code run faster. I think the obsession with monocultures is unhealthy. Python is a great language. It is reasonably easy to learn, somewhat readable if you dont yet. It is one of the most popular programming languages on the planet. But it was not created to produce the fastest code possible. There are other programming languages that are focused on speed. Perhaps for the most critical parts use one of them. Python can integrate pretty well with C with some magic i hear- (Never tried it myself). One programming language will never cover all use cases and they should not have to. Every programing langue is not made to be "functional" but they can be tortured into it. Every programming language is not objec

Pyston originally started as an internal project at Dropbox and they had a couple of super interesting blogposts where they detailed their approach and findings[0]. After a a year or two, the project got axed, but the devs kept working on it and then released it on their own (I don't remember the details, but evidently the chosen license for the project allowed that). Last year (I think it was last year, but can't tell if that was 2020 or 2019) they released it on their own, thinking of a commercial model. Now they have switched to OSS+services, which is interesting because it'llopen up more people using Pyston. I tihnk this is interesting in its own right, but yesterday we got Facebook announcing Cinder[1] -- which is unsupported to outsiders, but significantly faster than Pyston. According to Facebook, they intend for parts of Cinder to

How does this compare to https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder

> correction: the documentation does mention the lock: https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder/blob/f60897df9f6... That's unchanged from the upstream CPython repo.

We need some benchmarks to validate these bold claims. Edit: found them at https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder/blob/cinder/3.8/...

in the source there are quite a lot of references to a GIL (global interpreter lock). Does Cinder offer any improvements in terms of locking/GIL ? I didn't see any mention in the documentation. https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder/search?q=gil correction: the documentation does mention the lock: https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder/blob/f60897df9f6...

I wonder if Instagram being big Django site has driven Cinder development? What sort of impact Cinder has on their Django workloads? Regular models, views, ORM stuff can be fairly generic. Did they need to change Django to better benefit from Cinder? Edit: intriguing… https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder/blob/f60897df9f6...

Looking through the repo, one change of note that doesn't seem to be documented in the README [0] is that this has an optimization to reduce Copy on Writes in forked workers (under the Py_IMMORTAL_INSTANCES preprocessor guard) by not dirtying pages via refcount changes. Here's the BPO issue [1] that tracks the upstreaming attempt. [0] https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder/blob/9de726349eb... [1] https://bugs.python.org/issue40255

Benchmarks: https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder/blob/cinder/3.8/... There are some perf hits, as well as all the improvements.