pl-interoperability

Comparing the interoperability of Golang with C/C++ and Python with C/C++

Benchmarks to test

• Calculate spectral-norm
• Matrix Multiplication
• Polynomial computing
• Bubble sort

Benchmark these tests in: Go, CPython, CGo, CPython w/ C extensions and compare results.

• time, memory
• linux ps command
• Go "runtime" and "cmemory" libraries

Golang

Benefits of using Golang?

• Very fast compile time
• Concurrency support at the language level
• Garbage Collection is implemented
• Extremely scalable: Go is built out of asynchronous tasks with message passing
• Overall sort of like a low-level language with high-level syntax

Golang with C

cgo command

• Enables for the creation of Go packages that call C code
• Generate code to access C library functions and global variables
• Go's solution for integration with exiting software, infrastructure, and protocols

Points of interest to investigate

• Go is a garbage collected runtime while C is not. Passing data must be done carefully
• Call overhead: compare function call overhead differences between just Go vs CGo

CPython3 with C

• CPython itself is written in C so there is a Python API that allows access to most aspects of Python's runtime system
• Writing C modules for Python allows for two major benefits:
  1. New built-in object types
  2. Ability to call C library functions and system calls