It's a neat tool, for sure, but it's a very specific thing, and it has several down sides, mainly:
- Every module compiles to a shared library.
- Requires significant c infrastructure installed on the target machine to compile.
- Compiled code cannot be used without the python runtime.
This renders it almost useless for generating code for serious applications. It's an adhoc solution to ffi and slowness because those are things are major issues for python.
However, this (Rusthon) has some serious upsides:
The transpiled (if that's the word?) C++ / rust code is portable and fast.
It does not include the bloated standard python library.
It can be directly compiled using existing compiler tools for mobile devices (to be fair, as the kivy-ios project shows, this isn't impossible with cython, but it involves patching the python source to load modules differently).
How else would you import a module if it wasn't? If you want to reduce the number of shared libraries you could put all your code in a single module, of course.
> - Requires significant c infrastructure installed on the target machine to compile.
Anything which involves compilation to native code requires significant infrastructure.
> - Compiled code cannot be used without the python runtime.
And this is a downside why? Combining the best of both worlds--native code and Python--is the whole point. If you want to take out Python from the equation just use C/C++.
The issues I pointed out are related to building distributable targets.
Shared library per module and 'wrapped' compiler execution for example, is fundamentally hostile to distribution for mobile environments. Have a look at the hoops kivy-ios jumps though. It's absolutely ridiculous.
That's the thing python is the worst at; building a single stand alone application that does not require the user to install a copy of python and run pip to download a million dependencies before it will run.
This isn't in question. It's just life; that's not what python is good at.
Cython doesn't solve that problem. It solves a different set of problems; namely, ffi and speed.
My point is that by choosing an alternative approach (compile to portable C++ / rust) this project gives you the benefits of ffi and speed and distribution.
For Cython's intended audience, mostly scientific programming, distribution is just not a primary concern, but rather efficiency and productivity. I think the issues you cite are mostly the fault of the mobile targets themselves; e.g., their app stores put up artificial barriers of which languages may be used. On the server side or on a compute cluster having to pull in a bunch of dependencies is absolutely no problem, and is the very reason the ecosystem of Python provides productivity gains.
It's a little bit convenient to blame the platforms when your things don't work on them.
The reality is that the tools (cython, python) were built without mobile platforms in mind, and they (currently) are ill suited to supporting them. That's not the platforms fault; it just an artifact of the development history of the projects.
Cython is not a general purpose compile to C solution. It solves a different problem to Rusthon.
I see your point, Cython is not the right tool for the job when that involves mobile platforms. I just thought that the claim in your original comment came off as sweeping--"Cython isn't the answer"; you didn't mention that you had a specific problem in mind.
" It's a little bit convenient to blame the platforms when your things don't work on them."
Except, Python does work on them.. no one's blaming the platform. Everyone is at the same disadvantage on non-native platforms as everyone else. No ones blaming it. It's just that it's a hard think to retrofit -anything- to Apple or Google's platform that isn't ObjC/Java.
Python is further along here than most, which should be commended.
"That's the thing python is the worst at; building a single stand alone application that does not require the user to install a copy of python and run pip to download a million dependencies before it will run.
This isn't in question. It's just life; that's not what python is good at."
It is in question. I hate people with these narrow-minded viewpoints as if there's not a ton of flexibility and creativity going on with programming. It's preposterous and you must have a grudge or ulterior motive.
Python is not a stationary target with a fixed set of pros/cons. It's changing all the time.
In fact, I do what you're suggesting it isn't good for, all the time. Distributing single-binary applications using PyInstaller and Nuitka.
It's a neat tool, for sure, but it's a very specific thing, and it has several down sides, mainly:
- Every module compiles to a shared library.
- Requires significant c infrastructure installed on the target machine to compile.
- Compiled code cannot be used without the python runtime.
This renders it almost useless for generating code for serious applications. It's an adhoc solution to ffi and slowness because those are things are major issues for python.
However, this (Rusthon) has some serious upsides:
The transpiled (if that's the word?) C++ / rust code is portable and fast.
It does not include the bloated standard python library.
It can be directly compiled using existing compiler tools for mobile devices (to be fair, as the kivy-ios project shows, this isn't impossible with cython, but it involves patching the python source to load modules differently).