[Python-Dev] The "Need for Speed" Sprint, Reykjavik, Iceland, May 21-28, 2006

[Steve Holden]

EWT LLC and CCP h.f., having specific commercial interests in
doing so, have decided to sponsor a sprint on the Python
programming language with specific short- and medium-term
acceleration goals.

The sprint is also intended to stimulate broad consideration of
the future of Python, and specifically to try and identify the
most promising routes to improved performance.

Selected members of the Python developer community will receive
direct  invitations, and their attendance will be sponsored, to
try to ensure the most effective possible result. In the spirit
of open source events the sprint is open to all.

The venue is the Grand Hotel, Reykjavik, http://www.grand.is/.

The following objectives are of interest to the sponsors.

* Improving the decimal module by implementing portions in C

* Investigate whether RPython offers sufficient speedup over
   the regular CPython interpreter to replace tailored C and
   C++ code in MMP gaming applications

* Implement an ordered dictionary in both C and Python

* Implement data-structure-specific algorithms, which rely
   heavily on certain data structures, as RPython

* Adding an iterator interface (similar to re.finditer) to
   the struct module

* Further refine the PyPy LLVM back end to improve general
   execution speeds

* Offer the PyPy team a sprint venue to continue their
   development work on Python implementations written in Python

* Create a string subtype that provides lazy slicing without
   copying

Sprinters are, as always, free to choose the aspects of Python
they choose to work on.

Flights should be booked to and from Keflavik airport (KEF).

There will be a mid-week “let your hair down” social event to
which all sprint participants are cordially invited.

In order to ensure that sufficient meeting space is available,
please notify Steve Holden of your intention to attend by emailing
steve at holdenweb.com.

regards
  Steve
-- 
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