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Feb 2, 2026:
Programming Language Implementation: In Theory, We Understand. In Practice, We Wish We Would.
It’s February! This means I have been at the JKU for four months.
Four months with teaching Compiler Construction and System Software,
lots of new responsibilities (most notably signing off on telephone bills and coffee orders…), many new colleagues, and new things to learn for me, not least because of the very motivated students and PhD students here.
And when I say motivated, yes, I am very surprised. While the attendance of my 8:30am Compiler Construction lectures was declining throughout the term as expected, the students absolutely aced their exam.
I suspect I will have to make it harder next year. Much harder… hmmm 🤔
Much of the good results can likely be attributed to the very extensive exercise sessions run by my colleagues throughout the semester.
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Jan 20, 2026:
Python, Is It Being Killed by Incremental Improvements?
Over the past years, two major players invested into the future of Python. Microsoft’s Faster CPython team has pushed ahead with impressive performance improvements for the CPython interpreter, which has gotten at least 2x faster since Python 3.9. They also have a baseline JIT compiler for CPython, too. At the same time, Meta is worked hard on making free-threaded Python a reality to bring classic shared-memory multithreading to Python, without being limited by the still standard Global Interpreter Lock, which prevents true parallelism.
I head the
Institute for System Software
at the Johannes Kepler University Linz. My work focuses on programming language
implementation techniques, compilation, complex concurrent systems, and tooling.