Python Rountable (Friday)

• One person ported Python to the PS2, another to the GameCube

Memory Management

• Python allocates many tiny blocks
• Cache issues important on consoles
• Be very careful about fragmentation
• Python has many different memory hooks -- check ceval2.c for allocations that happen all the time, eg. 2 allocs for each method call
• Stackless Python can do lightweight threads (one person had 20,000 threads)
• Where is the runtime only version of Python py-embed?
  There's Pippy - Palm Python that's <= 256k with interpreter
• Freeze takes bytecode and makes it statically loaded - can avoid module loading entirely.
• Psyco is a JIT for Python
• Pyrex uses Python runtime but can be compiled if you give variable declarations (with a new syntax)
• "numeric" (used to be "numpy") is efficient on large vectors/matrices
• Use map, apply, intrinsic data structures, otherwise up to 1000x slower on directly translated code
• Avoid SWIG: bad for C++ (ok for C but slow/bloated), does a malloc for every call
• PyOpenGL would be fast except for SWIG
• Boost::Python problem is templates kill the compiler (GCC) on console
• Just use Python's C API, avoid wrappers
• One (nice) interface had about 50 3D engine+UI game engine entry points + like 2 for networking. Others used SWIG and were huge.
• There was 1 artist who was willing to write Python code
• Design a very tight interface, otherwise designers writing Python code will cause trouble
• Error checking is a bit annoying on a console where you have high turn-around.
• Make a PC debugging client that connects to console's Python interpreter: inspect variables, reload scripts, etc.
• Script development environment to improve productivity
• Use PyUnit unit testing framework; replace compile button with unit test button. Much easier to write unit tests in Python than C++. Also console's C++ compilers suck (no/bad exception handling).
• PyChecker - good for static checking, get the add-on
• Designers want to iterate! Can quickly determine what is fun.
• Involve designers in interface(API) design
• Pair program scripts with a designer and a programmer
• Build an automated build script in Python
• Someone's AI editor is in Python
• "BuildBot" -- watches version control and rebuilds
• "Scons" -- "make" replacement
• "distutils" -- makes a Windows installer