[pypy-dev] Seeking students for the Summer of Code

[Armin Rigo]

Hi Brian,

On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 03:29:35PM +0900, Brian Jones wrote:
> I have some questions/problems I'd like to pose in regards to SoC and
> applying to do a PyPy project.

Welcome!

> For starters, I am on my second semester of studying abroad in Japan
> right now, and the semester ends around the beginning-middle of
> August.

This is potentially a problem, but maybe not a too serious one if you
are usually working on side stuff a lot during semesters.

> Next, most of my programming experience to date is focused around
> higher level languages (Python, Ruby), and my C knowledge dates back
> to earlier low level CS courses.

Not a problem for PyPy - we have about 7000 lines of C in a corner but
we're working on removing that :-)

> Last, is of course a project plan (or lack thereof).  I was pointed at
> PyPy by Chris when I inquired about Stackless several months ago, and
> have had kind of a backburnered interest in both for awhile now.

Of course, you need a more concrete project.  At first, going through
the PyPy documentation should give you some ideas to start with, and
then come back to pypy-dev or to the #pypy channel on irc.freenode.net
to discuss them.  In the area of pickling process or thread states, our
current situation is as follows: we are starting to work on it these
days (E.U. funding requirements).  By the start of the Summer of Code we
won't be finished with the basics, though.
  
A bit later -- say by the half of the SoC project duration -- we will
hopefully be done with the basics of pickling, and then we will like to
move to other topics (we have just too many things to do!).  At this
point your constribution would be welcome to complete and polish the
area (which is a long and never-finished topic, so I don't fear lack of
work here :-)

So maybe there is a way to submit a SoC proposal that would start with
another small PyPy topic to get started, and move to pickling in a
second part.  At least it would fit.


A bientot,

Armin.