Scientific computing using Cython: Best of both Worlds!

Cython is not only an excellent and widely used tool to speed up computational Python code, it’s also a very smart way to talk to native code and libraries. The Cython compiler translates Python code to C or C++ code, and supports static type annotations to allow direct use of C/C++ data types and functions. You get the best of both worlds while working with Cython: Python like syntax with blazing fast C speed.

This talk/tutorial by a Python/Cython developer introduces Cython programming language and leads the participants all the way from their first Python extension to an efficient integration with native C. Topics covered will be: 1. Using the Cython compiler to build a native extension module 2. Cython development from Jupyter notebook 3. Mixing Python with static C types in the Cython language 4. Calling into native code from Cython code (Brief introduction) 5. Wrap up: A brief case study Cyvlfeat: A Cython/Python wrapper for Computer Vision library, VLFeat.

Participants are expected to have a good understanding of the Python language, some basic knowledge about C or C++. No deep C programming knowledge is required, nor is any prior knowledge needed about writing extension modules for the CPython runtime.