[Python-Dev] Ph.D. dissertation ideas?

[Jason Orendorff]

Brett,

You could create a downloadable corpus of Python source code, and
maybe a web site through which people can easily browse/search it,
contribute to it, and maintain it.  The point would be to support
language designers, tool developers, and researchers.  Several
python-dev folks have their own corpuses; I think other people would
be happy to use a free one if it were out there.

Of course there's no need to limit it to Python...

Creating a really *good* corpus is maybe not super-easy; I imagine
there are myriad linguistics papers explaining the nuances.  Hey,
cross-discipline research--cool points!

Once this exists, there's no shortage of research questions you can
quickly and easily answer with it.  What percentage of Python programs
use functional programming techniques?  How often are list
comprehensions used?  What do people use generators for?

And if you do something web-based, you can certainly work XML in there
somewhere.  :)

-j