On Thursday 10 December 2015 22:44:54 Tim Graham wrote: > Sorry for the ignorance, but I have little idea what cython is and what > incorporating this into Django involves. If you could give a little > background information that would be appreciated. > Cython (http://cython.org/) is a system for writing C extensions for Python, It defines a language which is mostly a superset of Python and provides a compiler which translates code from this language to C, such that modules defined in Cython become loadable extension modules.
The Cython language includes, besides Python constructs, syntax which translates more directly to C, allowing Cython code to easily use existing C libraries; since it produces extension modules, the same code is also easy to combine with pure Python. The home page says "All of this makes Cython the ideal language for wrapping external C libraries, embedding CPython into existing applications, and for fast C modules that speed up the execution of Python code". As you may imagine, the picture is not all rosy -- you do get complicated builds and cryptic error messages and subtle interactions and all that jazz, but in my experience it mostly stands up to that promise. (this doesn't mean it's a perfect match for Django, of course) Shai.
