[pypy-dev] Work plan for PyPy

[holger krekel]

Hi Anto, all, 

On Fri, Jun 15, 2007 at 01:01 +0200, Antonio Cuni wrote:
> Finally, a note which is not related with the work plan but to a 
> question that appeared in the logs; someone asked whether we want to 
> "sell" RPython as a stand-alone product.
> Last sunday I gave a PyPy talk at Pycon italy and, surprisingly enough, 
> RPython was perceived as the only (or the most relevant) usable product 
> of the pypy project. I tried hardly to explain that rpython is basically 
> only an accident and not very usable, but people are still impressed by 
> the 300000% speedup.
> It would be interesting to know if this perception is world-wide or only 
> limited to the attendants of my talk (maybe because I didn't stress 
> enough the pros of the other pypy goals or the cons of rpython).

FYI: Last week i gave a talk at the german Zope annual meeting
(extradoc/talk/dzug2007/dzug2007.txt).  To briefly summarize: 
I talked about the .NET backend, python interpreter 
prototypes/speed/status and the general usability of PyPy and its JIT 
for implementing other languages.  I also noted that the extension module 
area is currently in flux.  Questions at the talk then were mostly about the 
Python Interpreter, e.g. how to use persistence/Transparent 
proxy features e.g. with ZODB.  Jim Fulton also noted that zope only
needs few extension modules and often has pure python versions of its 
C-coded modules.  There wasn't a strong focus on RPython or the
ext-compiler but there was e.g. interest (prior to the talk) to port 
the Zope TAL interpreter to RPython in order to use it with CPython. 

Here is a thought: if our Python Interpreter becomes more usable
and can be used as a replacement for CPython in more cases, people *can*
write RPython modules for speed reasons if they want to.  Practically, 
i guess, it'd then be important to untangle the compilation of such 
written-for-speed extension modules from the translation of the 
Python Interpreter itself.  (this all apart from the question if 
a better JIT could obsolete the aim for writing RPython modules). 

best, 

holger