[pypy-dev] *FREE on-site* PyPy helper in exchange for PyPy MENTORING!?....

[holger krekel]

Hi Chris, 

On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 11:51 -0700, seberino at spawar.navy.mil wrote:
> There is a slight chance I may be able to convince US Navy to let me
> visit Europe for a few months to learn about cutting edge European
> software technologies.

The european union will be pleased to hear that the US Navy
is taking interest :-)  

> This may be the chance I've been looking for
> to talk about PyPy source with gurus *in person* to come up to speed
> fast on it and be a real contributor to PyPy project.

Guruness depends on the area of interest.  It would actually be 
interesting and helpful to know a bit of your background to recommend
the right kind of guruness.  For "how the hell this development
process works" you might ask Bea, for example.  For understanding
'specialize:ctr_location' it's probably a good idea to ask
Samuele or Armin.  And so on.  The project starts to reach 
a size where only very few people (if any) can know everything. 

> Any suggestions are desperately needed....

Let's wait with desperation until we have encountered "cosmic
ray" annotation problems in connection with stackless JIT
compiler experiments.  More or less the topics of the next
PyPy sprint in Paris :-)  

> ------------------
> 
> What can I give back to encourage someone to mentor me?  (Something
> that involved learning the source really well like helping comment
> the code and document the source is an idea.)

Sure.  Also there are a number of dark corners (tm) that need
clenaups/rewrites or (re)thinking further.  Oh, actually  
documenting the very existence of dark corners has 
been suggested in Heidelberg recently :-) 

> Who would be a good person to mentor me who can help me understand the
> source code really well?

A lot of people probably.  Depends on your area of interest
and what you mean by "really well".  Do you have a solid 
Python programming background and e.g. know a bit 
about Python code and function objects, and how the
CPython virtual machine works?  You may consider parts
of PyPy as documentation about how CPython actually works
on a more internal level, btw.  

> Where are most PyPy developers working? Perhaps
> multiple PyPy gurus are located in similar location?

We are working from multiple places mostly in Europe 
and usually meet for 6-8 days "sprint" meetings.

> Are there any conferences and meetings I should make sure to attend?

Visiting the US or Europe Python conferences certainly makes
sense.  Attending our sprints probably makes most sense.  All
a bit depending on your background and interests.  Our sprints
around conferences are usually most newbie friendly, whereas
our "we must get things done in three weeks time" meetings are 
less newcomer friendly. 

> What time frame is a good idea?

I am not sure i understand the question.  
Time frame for what exactly?  

> Any other thoughts?

Have you already considered coming to a PyPy sprint, 
e.g. the next one in Paris 10th-16th October?  

cheers, 

    holger