[pypy-dev] Parallella open hardware platform

[Armin Rigo]

Hi John,

Thanks for your lengthy analysis.  I'm sure that it can be interesting
for some to read.  Unfortunately, I'm personally an Open Source
hobbyist that happens to come from a university background and I'm
still attached to some ideas behind it.

You say about my hacking STM: "Often the first to solve a problem does
not become popular in the long run".  That is true, and I have no
problem with that.  My guess is that in the end STM will end up being
common in programming languages.  So I would like to help along
the way --- by showing that it works in complicated languages like
Python, using the unlimited flexibility of Software TM rather than as
an exercice to fit it around some Hardware TM.

It would be nice if PyPy also becomes the de-facto 2nd-generation
standard, but that's less realistic --- and not a problem for me.
My goal is *not* to write and sell the final product.  What would also
be nice is if this final product was Python, but unfortunately, it
seems unlikely at this point that CPython will ever convert to STM.  I
guess that besides PyPy, Python as a whole will lag behind, and likely
only end up using some HTM solution in 10-15 years when it's fully
ready.  (I consider the HTM that we have this year as preliminary at
best.)

That is my current analysis on the future of STM.  It doesn't include
huge monetary benefits for PyPy :-) but it doesn't change anything
about my own research motivation: 1st-generation research, as you call
it.  Obviously, PyPy as a whole is such a 1st-generation project.  What I
would actually like a lot is to see the emergence of other
2nd-generation platforms that apply the same principles as PyPy ---
for example, it would be a first step to see an efficient JavaScript
JIT compiler not manually written from scratch.


A bientôt,

Armin.