[pygame] Mixing Python and C in games

[Sami Hangaslammi <sami.hangaslammi@xxxxxxxxx>]

I've coded some simple extensions using Pyrex in the past, but I've
mostly been putting off the effort of learning to mix Python and C
properly. So I was wondering what experiences do people here have, and
what would you recommend. My goal is mostly to rewrite the inner loops
in my Pygext framework for event handling, rendering and collisions.
So I'm wonder how to best e.g. access Pygame surfaces and OpenGL
functions directly to lose some overhead, and how easy it is to take
advantage of, for example, the fast dict and set implementations in
Python (my event manager uses a lot of set objects internally, and I'd
rather not write my own set implementation in C).

Pyrex is my main candidate, as I'm the most familiar with it, and
creating extension classes for my purposes seems pretty easy. I just
have to figure out how to convert all usages of set and dict object
from my Python code to Pyrex. I've been reading Boost::Python
documentation lately, but the wrapper files feel a bit cumbersome and
verbose. The third option is using ctypes, but I know hardly anything
about it. If I understood correctly, its main purpose is to interface
with existing C-libraries, and it wouldn't be so well suited for
rewriting small bits of exisiting Python code in C.

So, if any of you have used Pyrex for example to optimize inner loops
in your games, I would appreciate some example code and pointers.

--
Sami Hangaslammi