EWT LLC and CCP h.f., having specific commercial interests in doing so, have decided to sponsor a sprint on the Python programming language with specific short- and medium-term acceleration goals. The sprint is also intended to stimulate broad consideration of the future of Python, and specifically to try and identify the most promising routes to improved performance. Selected members of the Python developer community will receive direct invitations, and their attendance will be sponsored, to try to ensure the most effective possible result. In the spirit of open source events the sprint is open to all. The venue is the Grand Hotel, Reykjavik, http://www.grand.is/. The following objectives are of interest to the sponsors. * Improving the decimal module by implementing portions in C * Investigate whether RPython offers sufficient speedup over the regular CPython interpreter to replace tailored C and C++ code in MMP gaming applications * Implement an ordered dictionary in both C and Python * Implement data-structure-specific algorithms, which rely heavily on certain data structures, as RPython * Adding an iterator interface (similar to re.finditer) to the struct module * Further refine the PyPy LLVM back end to improve general execution speeds * Offer the PyPy team a sprint venue to continue their development work on Python implementations written in Python * Create a string subtype that provides lazy slicing without copying Sprinters are, as always, free to choose the aspects of Python they choose to work on. Flights should be booked to and from Keflavik airport (KEF). There will be a mid-week “let your hair down” social event to which all sprint participants are cordially invited. In order to ensure that sufficient meeting space is available, please notify Steve Holden of your intention to attend by emailing steve@holdenweb.com. regards Steve -- Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC/Ltd www.holdenweb.com Love me, love my blog holdenweb.blogspot.com