[Cython] Interest in contributing to the project

Stefan Behnel stefan_ml at behnel.de
Fri Apr 1 10:11:56 CEST 2011


Arthur de Souza Ribeiro, 29.03.2011 09:11:
> Hello everybody,
>
> My name is Arthur de Souza Ribeiro and I'm a fourth-year student of Computer
> Science in Federal University of Campina Grande, Brazil. I'm a python
> programmer and have knowledge of other languages too, like Java, C, C++, Qt,
> Grails and ActionScript (used in Flex framework of Adobe).
>
> I saw Cython project and got really interested in contributing to it. By the
> way, I saw that the project is trying to participate of GSoC under Python
> Software Foundation umbrella. I know the student application period have
> already started, but, I'd really enjoy to participate of GSoC 2011 as a
> Cython's student. Until day 8 I could work really hard to show you that I
> can be selected as a GSoC student for Cython. I looked for an Ideas Page of
> the project but didn't find it, Is there any idea that you have to submit a
> project in GSoC?
>
> If possible, please tell me things that I can start doing to help the
> project.

Hi Arthur,

sorry for the late response and thank you for your application. We are 
always happy about contributions.

The Cython project is currently running a workshop that may yield further 
possible GSoC tasks, but the one we already have identified is IMHO quite a 
nice and self-contained one. The goal is to rewrite modules in CPython's 
standard library in Cython that are currently written in C. The intention 
is a) to simplify the implementation to make it easier for CPython 
developers to maintain their code base and b) to try to make the modules 
even faster than they are to show off Cython's optimisation capabilities 
(in that order, I think).

A related task could be to take existing Python modules in the stdlib, to 
profile them, and to add external type annotations to optimise them when 
being compiled with Cython.

Both the task of showing Cython's ability to efficiently (and compatibly) 
implement or compile parts of the stdlib, and the resulting testing of 
Cython (and bug reporting/fixing) against real world Python code would be 
very valuable to our project.

If you're interested, you could start by writing a short proposal including 
the modules that you would like to rewrite and what makes them interesting. 
Both "itertools" and "math" are certainly hot candidates, but there are 
definitely others, and your interest may change the priorities.

If you think that's not a good project for you, please bug us again, we may 
be able to come up with other projects as well.

Stefan


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