Google’s Unladen Swallow a great Monty Python reference and awesome news for Python
Check out Unladen Swallow, the new optimization fork of CPython (the main implementation of Python) happening over at Google.
With the ambitious goal of getting Python’s performance in the same ballpark as C’s performance for a wider range of performance-sensitive tasks, Google’s got a big job on their hands. However, our industry’s beloved ‘talent black hole’ (or ‘brown hole’, as they all are) surely has enough brains on deck for us to take their ambitions seriously. They will succeed.
This is a huge deal. Roaring-fast Python, and even the notion that it is coming, will help speed up adoption of Python. Also, once this thing is stable and supportable, it’s going to be great for bottom lines (power consumption, data center space, etc.) and, for the same reasons, great for the environment.
This project will probably pay for itself in App Engine improvements alone. As is often the case, what’s good for Google is good for the rest of us. And if Python wasn’t already the dominant up-and-coming scripting language, it is now. Eat dust, Ruby.
Tags: google, performance, python, Ruby