RustPythonIntegration

The simplest possible example on how to implement Rust code inside of Python 3.10 using pyo3 bindings with Maturin

We use Mamba as our package manager however you can also use Conda or pip.

Warning -> This is merely a proof of concept demonstration for my team on utilizing Rust in small and simple portions of computationally intensive code inside of Python scripts.

Reasons

I quite frequently have trouble with the slow nature of Python for computationally intensive tasks that cannot be effectively vectorized such as iterative cash flow calculations. As such I have explored various Packages/Libraries/Languages to support this need which has led to the discovery of Numba, Cython, and most recently Rust. They all come with their own set of drawbacks, however, some more critical than others.

Numba is awesome, HOWEVER, only effective for numerical operations (not strings) etc,. and faces significant drawbacks everywhere except for a set of very few respective use cases (mainly numerical array operations). One of the greatest bothers with Numba is their lack of full support for dictionaries, while Typed Dictionaries are supported by Numba they seem slow, ineffective, and hard to use.

Cython, conversely has native support for strings but has the potential for interaction with the interpreter defeating the purpose of compiled language utilization. Additionally, overall it feels clunky & difficult to use. (I do NOT like the idea of potential interaction with interpreter without your knowledge).

This brings us to Rust...

PyPy is not a valid solution as lots of packages are not available on PyPy and therefore useless unless we wanted to convulge PyPy and the CPython (just annoying).

Steps

1. Install Rust

   i. Visit rustup.rs in your web browser.

   ii. Follow the instructions provided on the website to install Rust and Cargo, Rust's package manager.

2. Create environment using Mamba <= Python 3.10

3. mamba install maturin

4. mamba install numpy

5. Run maturin init from the command line in the ENV you set up using Mamba.

   i. Select pyo3 bindings

6. Paste Rust code from rustcode_ORIG.rs into the newly formed Rust project that was created as a result of maturin init specifically -> lib.rs

7. Paste Rust toml dependencies from tomlDeps_ORIG.toml file into the newly formed Rust project file that was created as a result of maturin init specifically -> Cargo.toml

8. Run maturin develop --release from the command line in the ENV you set up using Mamba.

9. Run the main.py file to examine the interaction of Python and Rust!