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codon/docs/intro/roadmap.md

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Codon's goal is to be as close to CPython as possible while still being fully statically compilable. While Codon already supports much of Python, there is still much to be done to fully realize its potential. Here is a high-level roadmap of the things we want to add, implement or explore.

Core features

  • Type system improvements:

    • First-class types and compile-time metaclasses
    • Full class member deduction
    • Implicit union types to support mixed-type collections
    • Variadic type arguments (e.g. Foo[Bar, ...])

  • Parallelism

    • async/await support
    • multiprocessing support
    • Automatic locking in parallel code (e.g. if mutating a data structure shared between threads)
    • Race detection

  • Compatibility with Python 3.10+:

    • Argument separators (/ and *)
    • Constructor object matching in the match statement
    • Support accessing various object properties (__dict__, __slots__ etc.) as much as possible in a static context

  • Optional automatic switching between Codon and CPython (i.e. compile only compatible functions and leave the rest to Python)

  • Better error messages

    • Warning support
    • Explain performance considerations
    • Explain that a CPython feature is not supported

  • Modules and incremental compilation

    • Cache compilation modules
    • Fast generics compilation in debug mode for quick turnarounds

  • Memory management

    • Auto-tune GC
    • Optional alternative memory management modes like reference counting

  • GPU support

    • Target Apple, AMD and Intel GPUs
    • GPU-specific compiler optimizations (e.g. for using various Python constructs on the GPU)

  • Interoperability with other languages

    • Direct C++ interoperability via Clang
    • R interoperability

Libraries

Currently, missing Python functionality can be easily accessed via a from python import foo statement, which is sufficient in most cases as many libraries are just thin wrappers around a C library and/or not performance-sensitive.

However, in the near future, we would like to support the following modules natively:

  • Python's standard library

    • Complete builtins support
    • 1-to-1 compatibility with existing Python functions and modules
    • File modules: os, sys, struct, pathlib and so on
    • Pretty much everything else on an as-needed basis

  • Native NumPy, Pandas, etc.: Having Codon-native versions of the most popular 3rd-party libraries would allow them to work with Codon's other features like multithreading and GPU. We're currently prioritizing NumPy and Pandas but aim to later target other popular libraries as well.

  • Unicode support

  • Python's testing infrastructure

Infrastructure & Tools

  • Windows support

  • A sane package manager similar to Rust's Cargo

  • Auto-detection of installed Python libraries

  • Improved codon.jit library support

    • Better error messages
    • Better installation flow

  • Fully static binary support like Go

    • Remove libcodonrt (runtime library) dependency if needed
    • Remove libcpp dependency

  • Improved Jupyter support

    • Auto-completion and code inspection
    • Jupyter magic command support

  • Plugins for Visual Studio Code, Vim, Emacs and so on

Documentation

  • Fully document major differences with CPython
  • Document Codon IR API, with guides and tutorials
  • Document all supported modules

Nice to have

  • Implement Codon in Codon