Show HN: Copy-and-patch compiler for hard real-time Python
github.comI built Copapy as an experiment: Can Python be used for hard real-time systems?
Instead of an interpreter or JIT, Copapy builds a computation graph by tracing Python code and uses a custom copy-and-patch compiler. The result is very fast native code with no GC, no syscalls, and no memory allocations at runtime.
The copy-and-patch compiler currently supports x86_64 as well as 32- and 64-bit ARM. It comes as small Python package with no other dependencies - no cross-compiler, nothing except Python.
The current focus is on robotics and control systems in general. This project is early but already usable and easy to try out.
Would love your feedback! This looks like it could become an excellent alternative in time to not just NumPy and Numba, but also Cython. I know that may be more ambitious than your original intentions, but that's absolutely what sprung to mind. THAT'S INSANE! I always wondered if this could be possible. Like you fuzz a program, map out each possible allocation and deallocation and optimize the code with those hot paths and some statistics. Very interesting project, would love some sort of write up on it.