Extension writing with Cython
What if you could run a compiler across your Python code and automatically produce a C extension module that does everything your code does, but faster?
Cython is an extension-writing language that allows you to write extensions in something that looks almost exactly like Python code and get performance benefits immediately.
The Cython developers explicitly see "compiling your Python code and having it work just the same" as a design goal for their tool. This is in contrast to the Pyrex project, from which Cython is derived, which considers itself more of an extension-writing language.
We'll do a code-dojo type project to try using Cython to speed up some library. To be clear, we'll pair-program (group program) together trying to create an extension. No preparation will be done regarding the codebase, we'll just sit down and start working on it together and see if we can get a speedup from the tool. We'll switch off drivers and navigators throughout the process, and any skill or experience level is welcome.
