[pypy-dev] features, benefits, and recruiting help

[Michal Wallace]

On Thu, 15 Sep 2005, Laura Creighton wrote:

> From our point of view, Python is not flexible.  You are stuck with
> some 'reasonable compromises' at the language-implementor's-decision
> level.  If you have tons of memory, the best algorithms to use are
> different from those that you use if you are an embedded system and
> have none, and neither of those are about right for a typical
> laptop.  A truly flexible system would let you code up your own
> 'search the dictionary' algorithm and stick it right inside the
> language where it belongs, and see whether things work faster.
> 
> It is interesting -- the challenge for PyPy does not really seem to
> be 'to get faster than CPython'.  Instead, it is 'to get almost as
> fast as CPython.'  Once PyPy is fast enough to use commercially,
> everybody who has an idea for a faster implementation of library
> function X, given data that looks like Y, will be free to code it up
> into its own objectspace and see what happens.  And there are a lot
> of cool algorithms out there.
> 
> The problem will be getting reasonable performance at all.  There is
> overhead associated with having this much flexibility.  

Hi Laura,

Thanks for explaining this. So this is another
great benefit that ought to be part of the
marketing message. :)

In my mind I've been picturing pypy as a compiler.
Python goes in, C or lisp code goes out. 

But what I think you're saying here is that since
pypy is written in python, it can compile itself
and produce a variety of custom virtual machines?

So, for example, jython and ironpython and pirate
could all eventually just be implemented as 
backends for pypy?

And we could finally get a decent python 
interpreter running on a palm pilot?

Because if so, I can think of a whole list of
companies that might be interested in adding
funding to the mix:

  microsoft (ha?)
  novell (they fund mono)
  sun or ibm (for the jvm)
  nokia (for their series 60 phone)
  palm (for palm pilot)
  sony or ibm (for the cell processor)
  
Basically, these are all groups that want 
a lot of developers to use their technology.

Sony, for example is coming out with their
playstation 3 based on this new cell chip. 
Video games take years to program. They're
usually written in C. If you can show sony
that by supporting pypy they can have a
fast-as-c language custom taylored to their
architecture, they might just go for it.
The've already announced plans for a PS3 with
linux installed, so they must have some
experience funding open source projects.

Similarly, palm has devoted resources to
the eclipse project to create a standard
IDE for developing palm pilot applications.

I don't even think you have to market a product 
here. You can just market the potential
benefits of the research itself to the right
people, show them how it would benefit them,
and show them the care and professionalism
with which you're already running this
project (so they know you'll actually deliver).

And of course when I say you, I mean
anybody on the list who was interested
in getting more funding for this project. :)

Sincerely,
 
Michal J Wallace
Sabren Enterprises, Inc.
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contact: michal at sabren.com
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