[pypy-svn] rev 1919 - pypy/trunk/doc/funding

[lac at codespeak.net]

Author: lac
Date: Tue Oct 14 18:42:43 2003
New Revision: 1919

Modified:
   pypy/trunk/doc/funding/B7.0_other_issues.txt
Log:
Check that this doesn't make ReST insane.  I am worried about the  underlines from the mailing list



Modified: pypy/trunk/doc/funding/B7.0_other_issues.txt
==============================================================================
--- pypy/trunk/doc/funding/B7.0_other_issues.txt	(original)
+++ pypy/trunk/doc/funding/B7.0_other_issues.txt	Tue Oct 14 18:42:43 2003
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@
      ignored. Studies have shown that, while women who do enter CS
      enter with less experience, they demonstrate no less ability than
      their male counterparts. By breaking down the barriers to entry
-     noted above, Pypy will help lessen the gender gap,
+     noted above, PyPy will help lessen the gender gap,
      technologically, socially and economically.
 
 As an example of the benificial effects that Python already has on
@@ -92,7 +92,7 @@
 
 Nobody who uses a computer can avoid noticing how viruses, unsolicited
 email and computer attacks have made life difficult for computer
-users. While Pypy is unable to solve such problems, it may mitigate
+users. While PyPy is unable to solve such problems, it may mitigate
 them. There are 3 factors that affect this:
 
 1. The ease of writing Python programs give the developers more time
@@ -112,5 +112,90 @@
 Other Policy related Issues
 -----------------------------
 
-We have not identified any other policy related issues.
-
+As we mentioned before, one of the greatest threats to European
+competitiveness is its dependence upon proprietary closed source
+software, mostly made in the United States.  short-term threat of
+dependedence upon your supplier was already discussed in section 3.
+
+There is another threat, which is more insidious, and more long term.
+A good workman knows his tools.  This is much more than the
+theoretical knowledge of how his tools ought to work, according to
+principles learned in school.  The way car mechanics know how cars
+work is distinctly different from what you would know if you had
+attended classes on 'the principles of the internal combustion
+engine'.
+
+Right now, in Europe, we don't have enough of the software equivalents
+of car-mechanics.  And most of them live in academia, where they know
+the intimate details of languages that never get used in industrial
+applications.  They are the Formula-One race car mechanics of the
+software world. While race car mechanics do serve a useful purpose,
+we have a much greater need for people who know how to repair the
+family car.
+
+It is not as if there is a shortage of people who would be interested
+in learning such things, if the source were made available.  Many
+people have taken this step by learning how CPython does its stuff.
+But still there is a barrier.  If you want to know how CPython does
+things, you need to learn C.  C is a notoriously difficult language to
+learn.
+
+But let us quote an article posted to the Python-in-Education
+mailing list in its entirity.
+
+  Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2003 11:52:05 -0400
+  From: Arthur <ajsiegel at optonline.net>
+  To: edu-sig at python.org
+  Subject: [Edu-sig] re : If the PyPy Project ...
+
+  List-Id: Python in education <edu-sig.python.org>
+
+  Terry -
+
+  >Since I presume the goal of PyPy is to implement *Python* in Python,
+  >wouldn't the implementation language be rather insignificant to an
+  >end-user such as an educator?  Why would it be "better" than CPython?
+
+  For whatever reason, the complex built_in  and the cmath module, implemented
+  in Python, are part of the early pypy codebase. As I had been spending some
+  time in the complex realm with PyGeo - a simple version of the complex
+  realm, as these things go - Laura's post gave me the impetus to try to
+  plugin the pypy implementations.
+
+  Only got stuck on the typing issue.  My code tests for
+  instance(object,complex).  The pypy complexobject, unadorned, is a class -
+  and fails the test.  But that leads me into a deeper look at some of the
+  pypy codebase, trying to understand a little bit of how this kind of issue
+  are to be dealt with.  Not that I got there, yet - but I did seem to have an
+  avenue to explore I would not have with CPython - as someone who doesn't C,
+  and has no intention of trying, seriously, to do so.
+
+  As someone living within the limits of having Python as my only real
+  language, I think that pypy should open things up for me considerably.  It
+  will make Python, I believe, a more attractive educational language, because
+  it will make someone with a strong foundation in Python - as the language of
+  choice - a more self-sufficient programmer.
+
+  Presumably - the point is - there will be less cases where the right
+  approach would be an extension module in C or C++, and a sense of
+  fundamental compromise should one not be equipped to go there.  Many
+  thousands of folks - using VB and the like - already do involved,
+  highly performing real world applications and make nice livings doing
+  so, without being equipped to do C.  I am thinking that pypy would put
+  Python more squarely in that "space".
+
+  Is any of this so, or just hope?
+
+  Art
+
+  _______________________________________________
+  Edu-sig mailing list
+  Edu-sig at python.org
+  http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
+  ------------------------------------------------------
+
+Here is somebody who is hoping we can give him a language he can
+understand and use without learning C.  He is the author of PyGeo, a
+dynamic geometry laboratory and toolkit, commonly used by elementary
+and high school teachers.  This is where the future lies.  Python is
+already an excellent teaching language.  PyPy will be a better one.