[Fwd: Pyrex gets a perfect score.]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Pyrex gets a perfect score.
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 15:08:06 GMT
From: Kyler Laird <Kyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Organization: Insight Broadband
To: python-list@xxxxxxxxxx
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python

I mentioned earlier that I started using Pyrex because I'm taking a
computer vision course that requires all assignments to be submitted
as C(++).  While I could write C it would hurt me to do so and
certainly distract me from the computer vision aspects.  I like
using Python these days and Pyrex looked like a good solution.

(BTW, on the last assignment I saw several messages from someone
having difficulty with segfaults due to memory allocation problems.
Grrr...  Time spent messing with pointers is not advancing one's
understanding of computer vision.)

Here's one reaction I got on the subject:
>  1. How is your teacher going to react when you hand in obfuscated-ish
>  C code that depends on the whole Python interpreter _and_ PIL?

The bottom line is that I got a perfect score on all (seven) of my
homework assignments.  At first, I spent way too much time on them -
figuring out how to use Pyrex and also just having fun exploring
possibilities that I wouldn't have considered if I'd used C.  Later,
however, I found that I could start on the assignment the night
before it's due and complete it in time.  In terms of time, it was
still a good investment over this short period.

Most important, I had fun doing these assignments and I learned a
lot from them.  I am confident that I would not have accomplished
as much with C (from scratch).

Our project is going to require fast decoding of an image.  My
homework solutions have been agonizingly slow.  There's a lot of
room for optimizations and I'm looking forward to using Pyrex to
prototype in Python and then replace pieces with C as needed.

I can certainly see how Pyrex could serve nicely beyond academic
settings.  Is it a way to sneak Python into projects that are
"strictly C"?  Sure, it can work.  Can it free the developer to
quickly experiment with new concepts without spending excessive
effort on programming?  Definitely.  Is speed and ease of
development sometimes more important than execution speed.  Yup.
Can Pyrex be used effectively as a path to a native C solution?
We'll see, but I'm confident that it can.

Thank you, Pyrex!

--kyler
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