[pypy-dev] pypy on Tim Bray's blog

[Christian Tismer]

Martijn Faassen wrote:
> Laura Creighton wrote:
>> In a message of Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:53:33 +0100, Martijn Faassen writes:
> [snip]
>>>> Tim is very Ruby focused.  He's not interested in python, he said,
>>>> because 'the ruby community is more vibrant'.  Vibrant is measured
>>>> in body-count.  
>>> body-count? As in how many people are part of it (I imagine Python would 
>>> do pretty well compared to Python) or how many people die in horrible 
>>> flame wars? :)
>> I think 'how many people attend Ruby developers conferences' and
>> 'how many people use rails' but I am not 100% convinced of that.
> 
> I'm convinced the body count of Python users is probably still quite a 
> bit larger than Ruby users. I also have a strong suspicion far more 
> people are using Python web frameworks than there are people using 
> Rails, hype aside, but I may be wrong about that.

Just to put my 2 cent in here:

I am back to an old idea from the pre-pypy area.
A small team was trying to create something like a scripting kernel.
Ruby, Tcl, Python and even Perl, based upon a common set of
structures and algorithms.
This was Gordon Mc. Millan, Jean-Claude Wippler, Matt Newman.
A way too small group with way too large intentions.
But in the end, having a group like PyPy, extending across
a set of languages, might be the realization of an old wish.

I think this could work for pypy:
Not trying to be the one-and-only language right now and comparing
with other languages. I would rather like to avoid this discussion at
all and to get PyPy out of such discussions.

If we are going for some ruby support, this will enhance the ability
and generality of PyPy. This holds for other languages as well.

We have choosen to implement everything using RPython. I do think
this was a good decision. Besides that, PyPy could avoid to be
an advocate for any language. There is enough advocacy for this
and other languages. PyPy is more than one language, and it is
not a decision. It is a way to improve lots of languages.

PyPy, changing its target as not (yet) trying to be the one and only
better Python, but to be the first really capable collection of
building blocks for interpreted languages could be much easier to
argue for, because that part of PyPy does not have any competitors.
Reducing that to one language is not a benefit at all.

Making PyPy more general by becoming less Python focused might
change the focus of many, realizing that there is a new concept
around, of building interpreters with a Jit, able to tailor its
outcome to many special applications.

Removing the language constraint seems to be a natural atep
in this evolution, broadening PyPy's scope, and getting rid of
silly language discussions. In the end, we can reduce the problem
by extending to "any interesting language" which can widen PyPy's
scope substantially.

My 2 cent, maybe becoming more -- chris
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