We’ve officially released CyLucene, a Python interface to CLucene. CLucene is a C++ implementation of Apache Lucene, the popular search engine library.

Python developers wishing to use a well supported search engine typically head to PyLucene. PyLucene’s approach is to build an interface to a C++ layer using their custom grown JCC compiler, which then talks to Java Lucene via JNI. That’s two layers of indirection, one of which is JNI.

Even if you believe JNI is efficient, there’s still the added overhead of requiring Java at runtime. If you run a website on a shared hosting service that restricts you to, say, 80 MB of RAM, CyLucene might be for you.

CyLucene 0.1 is minimally useful. It good enough to power Standing Room’s upcoming search features, but it’s far from a complete CLucene bridge. We’re in real need of feedback as to what features we need to expose to make the package more generally useful. You can find contact info in the readme.txt file, and can file a bug as always.