20 February 2019

Nuitka Release 0.6.2

This is to inform you about the new stable release of Nuitka. It is the extremely compatible Python compiler, “download now”.

This release has a huge focus on organizational things. Nuitka is growing in terms of contributors and supported platforms.

Bug Fixes

  • Fix, the Python flag --python-flag=-O was removing doc strings, but that should only be done with --python-flag=-OO which was added too.

  • Fix, accelerated binaries failed to load packages from the virtualenv (not venv) that they were created and ran with, due to not propagating sys.prefix.

  • Standalone: Do not include plat-* directories as frozen code, and also on some platforms they can also contain code that fails to import without error.

  • Standalone: Added missing implicit dependency needed for newer NumPy versions.

New Features

  • Added support for Alpine Linux.

  • Added support for MSYS2 based Python on Windows.

  • Added support for Python flag --python flag=-OO, which allows to remove doc strings.

  • Added experimental support for pefile based dependency scans on Windows, thanks to Orsiris for this contribution.

  • Added plugin for proper Tkinter standalone support on Windows, thanks to Jorj for this contribution.

  • There is now a __compiled__ attribute for each module that Nuitka has compiled. Should be like this now, and contains Nuitka version information for you to use, similar to what sys.version_info gives as a namedtuple for your checks.

    __nuitka_version__(major=0, minor=6, micro=2, releaselevel="release")

Optimization

  • Experimental code for variant types for int and long values, that can be plain C value, as well as the PyObject *. This is not yet completed though.

  • Minor refinements of specialized code variants reducing them more often the actual needed code.

Organizational

  • The Nuitka GitHub Organisation that was created a while ago and owns the Nuitka repo now, has gained members. Check out https://github.com/orgs/Nuitka/people for their list. This is an exciting transformation for Nuitka.

  • Nuitka is participating in the GSoC 2019 under the PSF umbrella. We hope to grow even further. Thanks to the mentors who volunteered for this important task. Check out the GSoC 2019 page and thanks to the students that are already helping out.

  • Added Nuitka internal API documentation that will receive more love in the future. It got some for this release, but a lot is missing.

  • The Nuitka code has been black-ened and is formatted with an automatic tool now all the way, which makes contributors lives easier.

  • Added documentation for questions received as part of the GSoC applications and ideas work.

  • Some proof reading pull requests were merged for the documentation, thanks to everybody who addresses these kinds of errors. Sometimes typos, sometimes broken links, etc.

  • Updated inline copy of Scons used for Python3 to 3.0.4, which hopefully means more bugs are fixed.

Summary

This release is a sign of increasing adoption of Nuitka. The GSoC 2019 is showing early effects, as is more developers joining the effort. These are great times for Nuitka.

This release has not much on the optimization side that is user visible, but the work that has begun is capable of producing glorious benchmarks once it will be finished.

The focus on this and coming releases is definitely to open up the Nuitka development now that people are coming in as permanent or temporary contributors in (relatively) high numbers.

Nuitka this week #12   Nuitka Release 0.6.3