SIMD powered Python

[Bytter]

Hi!

Is there any I&D ongoing about using SIMD [1] instructions, like SSE
[2], to speed up Python, especially regarding functional features,
like list comprehension, map and reduce, etc.. ?

Best regards,

Hugo Ferreira

--

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIMD
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_SIMD_Extensions

[Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch]

Re: SIMD powered Python

In <1182554657.444 684.268050@i13g 2000prf.googleg roups.com>, Bytter wrote:

Is there any I&D ongoing about using SIMD [1] instructions, like SSE
[2], to speed up Python, especially regarding functional features,
like list comprehension, map and reduce, etc.. ?

SIMD instruction sets know about "low level" data types, Python is about
objects. `map()`, `reduce()`, list comprehension work on arbitrary
iterables so how do you expect SIMD instructions handle this? Even simple
lists contain objects and those don't have to be of the same type.

Ciao,
Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch

[Bytter]

Re: SIMD powered Python

Hi...

True... But maybe in NumPy arrays that would be more feasible...?

Cheers.

Hugo Ferreira

Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch escreveu:

In <1182554657.444 684.268050@i13g 2000prf.googleg roups.com>, Bytter wrote:
>

Is there any I&D ongoing about using SIMD [1] instructions, like SSE
[2], to speed up Python, especially regarding functional features,
like list comprehension, map and reduce, etc.. ?

>
SIMD instruction sets know about "low level" data types, Python is about
objects. `map()`, `reduce()`, list comprehension work on arbitrary
iterables so how do you expect SIMD instructions handle this? Even simple
lists contain objects and those don't have to be of the same type.
>
Ciao,
Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch

[Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch]

Re: SIMD powered Python

In <1182607699.214 626.85230@u2g20 00hsc.googlegro ups.com>, Bytter wrote:

Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch escreveu:

>In <1182554657.444 684.268050@i13g 2000prf.googleg roups.com>, Bytter wrote:
>>

Is there any I&D ongoing about using SIMD [1] instructions, like SSE
[2], to speed up Python, especially regarding functional features,
like list comprehension, map and reduce, etc.. ?

>>
>SIMD instruction sets know about "low level" data types, Python is about
>objects. `map()`, `reduce()`, list comprehension work on arbitrary
>iterables so how do you expect SIMD instructions handle this? Even simple
>lists contain objects and those don't have to be of the same type.

>
True... But maybe in NumPy arrays that would be more feasible...?

Yes but that's in external libraries and not in the Python interpreter.
So it won't speed up Python code like list comprehensions but "just" calls
to external functions written in C, Fortran or assembler if those make use
of SIMD instructions.

Ciao,
Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch

[Paul Rubin]

Re: SIMD powered Python

Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch <bj_666@gmx.net writes:

True... But maybe in NumPy arrays that would be more feasible...?

>
Yes but that's in external libraries and not in the Python interpreter.
So it won't speed up Python code like list comprehensions but "just" calls
to external functions written in C, Fortran or assembler if those make use
of SIMD instructions.

Right, Python has such poor control over side effects that it has not
much chance of parallelizing stuff like list comprehensions in
general. Maybe there's some chance of doing it for some special cases
with RPython.

See http://www.google.com/search?q="neste d+data+parallel ism"
for what's happening with some other languages.