Abstract

Pure Python code is slow, primarily due to the dynamic nature of the language. I have begun building a compiler to produce fast native code from Python source programs. While compilation can improve performance, any such gains will be modest unless the compiler can statically resolve most of the dynamism present in source programs. Static type inference for Python programs would enable the safe removal of most type checks and most instances of dynamic dispatch and dynamic binding from the generated code. Removing dynamic dispatch and binding leads to large performance benefits since their existence precludes many traditional optimization techniques, such as inlining. I have built a static type inferencer for Python called Starkiller. Given a Python source file, it can deduce the types of all expressions in the program without actually running it. Starkiller’s primary goal is to take a Python source program as input and deduce the information needed to make native code compilation of that program easy. This paper is describes Starkiller’s design and operation. It is partially

Citations