Well, I think Numpy is of huge importance to a major Python user segment, the scientific community. I don't know if that makes it 'core', but I strongly agree that it's important.

Better testing is always useful, and more "core", but IMO less important.

-T

On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 6:38 AM, C. Titus Brown <ctb@msu.edu> wrote:
Hi all,

this year we have 10-12 GSoC applications that I've put in the "relevant
to core Python development" category.  These projects, if mentors etc
are found, are *guaranteed* a slot under the PSF GSoC umbrella.  As
backup GSoC admin and general busybody, I've taken on the work of
coordinating these as a special subgroup within the PSF GSoC, and I
thought it would be good to mention them to python-dev.

Note that all of them have been run by a few different committers,
including Martin, Tarek, Benjamin, and Brett, and they've been obliging
enough to triage a few of them.  Thanks, guys!

Here's what's left after that triage.  Note that except for the four at
the top, these have all received positive support from *someone* who is
a committer and I don't think we need to discuss them here -- patches
etc. can go through normal "python-dev" channels during the course of the
summer.

I am looking for feedback on the first four, though.  Can these
reasonably be considered "core" priorites for Python?  Remember, this
"costs" us something in the sense of preferring these over Python
subprojects like (random example) Cython, NumPy, PySoy, Tahoe, Gajim,
etc.

---

Questionable "core":

2x "port NumPy to py3k" -- NumPy is a major Python module and porting it
       to py3k fits with Guido's request that "more stuff get ported".
       To be clear, I don't think anyone expects all of NumPy to get
       ported this summer, but these students will work through issues
       associated with porting big chunks o' code to py3k.

       One medium/strong proposal, one medium/weak proposal.

Comments/thoughts?

2x "improve testing tools for py3k" -- variously focus on improving test
       coverage and testing wrappers.

       One proposes to provide a nice wrapper to make nose and py.test
       capable of running the regrtests, which (with no change to
       regrtest) would let people run tests in parallel, distribute or
       run tests across multiple machines (including Snakebite), tag
       and run subsets of tests with personal and/or public tags, and
       otherwise take advantage of many of the nice features of nose
       and py.test.

       The other proposes to measure & increase the code coverage of
       the py3k tests in both Python and C, integrate across multiple
       machines, and otherwise provide a nice set of integrated reports
       that anyone can generate on their own machines.  This proposal,
       in particular, could move smoothly towards the effort to produce
       a "Python-wide" test suite for CPython/IronPython/PyPy/Jython.
       (This wasn't integrated into the proposal because I only found
       out about it after the proposals were due.)

       I personally think that both testing proposals are good, and
       they grew out of conversations I had with Brett, who thinks that
       the general ideas are good.  So, err, I'm looking for pushback,
       I guess ;).  I can expand on these ideas a bit if people are
       interested.

       Both proposals are medium at least, and I've personally been
       positively impressed with the student interaction.

Comments/thoughts?

---

Unquestionably "core" by my criteria above:

3to2 tool -- 'nuff said.

subprocess improvement -- integrating, testing, and proposing some of
       the various subprocess improvements that have passed across this
       list & the bug tracker

IDLE/Tkinter patch integration & improvement -- deal with ~120 tracker
       issues relating to IDLE and Tkinter.

roundup VCS integration / build tools to support core development --
       a single student proposed both of these and has received some
       support.  See http://slexy.org/view/s2pFgWxufI for details.

sphinx framework improvement -- support for per-paragraph comments and
       user/developer interface for submitting/committing fixes

2x "keyring package" -- see
http://tarekziade.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/pycon-hallway-session-1-a-keyring-library-for-python/.
The poorer one of these will probably be axed unless Tarek gives it
strong support.

--

--titus
--
C. Titus Brown, ctb@msu.edu
_______________________________________________
Python-Dev mailing list
Python-Dev@python.org
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev
Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/tleeuwenburg%40gmail.com



--
--------------------------------------------------
Tennessee Leeuwenburg
http://myownhat.blogspot.com/
"Don't believe everything you think"