[Python-Dev] Language Summit notes

[Thomas Wouters]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 4:24 AM, Kushal Das <kushaldas at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 6:38 AM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org>
> wrote:
> > To anyone who took notes at the language summit at PyCon today, even if
> you
> > took them just for yourself, would you mind posting them here? It would
> be
> > good to have some kind of (informal!) as soon as possible, before we
> > collectively forget. You won't be held responsible for correctness.
> >
>
> The day started with introductions. Guido introduced himself as its
> all his fault.
>
> Release management discussion
> ==============================
>
> Larry Hastings started the day with discussion on 3.5 release. 3.4
> release was actually in 16 months. He wanted a
> feedback on the next release, if we want it in a smaller release cycle
> than the usual 18 months. Guido mentioned to
> stay with the 18 month cycle.
>
> Larry also asked about opinions on state of the SCM after release
> candidate 1, should we create 3.5 branch and if yes
> then should we allow people to commit there or not? Default should
> point to 3.5.1 or 3.6 at that time? There can be another
> scenario where we do not create the 3.5 branch and keep the default as
> 3.5 release itself. The discussion will continue
> in the mailing list.
>
> Next topic in the agenda was reports from different implementations.
>
> PyPy
> =====
>
> Alex Gaynor gave us the current status of `PyPy <http://pypy.org>`_
> project. There will be a second fund raiser on STM.
> The next release is targeting 2.7.6, there were a million downloads.
> While discussing about Python 3 branch he explained
> that it it only 3 bugs away from shipping and it is based on 3.2.
>
>
> There was a small discussion about state of CFFI for standard library
> inclusion. Alex and David Beazley are supposed to
> work on cleaning PLY for the same. General opinion was that it will be
> hidden as a private part of the standard lib and to
> be used by the language only.
>

No, the opinion was that it _shouldn't_ be hidden as a private part of the
standard library :) But some cleanup needs to happen before it can be added
to the stdlib.


>
> Ironpython
> ===========
>
> Dino Viehland talked about the status of `Ironpython
> <http://ironpython.net>`_ project. Development is going on both 2.7
> and 3.x
> series. 2.7.4 was released last year. Many new contributors came into
> the project which is a good news.
>
> Jython
> =======
>
> The developers sent a detailed report to Micheal Foord and he will
> forward it to the python-dev list. The takeaways from the mail are
>
> * Small number of contributors is a big problem.
> * 2.7.beta2 is tagged which used Java7.
> * Buffer protocol work is done (foundation to Python3 support).
> * They are also working on PyPi tooling.
> * There is also hope for releasing CFFI backend for Jython during
> Europycon sprints.
>
>
> No standard library as module
> ==============================
>
> When it was asked that if the other implementations want the standard
> library as a separate module to be resused, all agreed as 'No'.
>

Their answer was mostly "don't care". It has some minor benefits, in
particular when they move to Python 3 and track active development more
closely, but no important ones.


>
> Packaging
> ===========
>
> It was the longest discussion which made hungry developers really
> hungry :) Jokes aside, Nick Coghlan gave a detailed report on the
> advancement of the packaging world. Most of the development/design
> discussions are now happening on the distutils sig and in pypi mailing
> lists.
> He managed to put the use cases a very broader audience now, so we can
> except better feedbacks. On the development side, Warehouse is now
> implementing all old API(s), you may want to try it out at
> `https://warehouse.python.org/ <https://warehouse.python.org/>`_.
>
> 3.4 has pip included, one usecase was to help people who downloads
> binary installers from our site. They can now install Django or other
> projects
> in wheel format.
>
> Everyone also agreed that having the buildsystem inside the language
> is a bad idea. The buildsystem should be able to do cross-version
> builds.
>
> Nick also pointed us to `http://packaging.python.org/
> <http://packaging.python.org/en/latest/>`_ which is the documentation
> for the whole echosystem.  We all agreed that the Python echosystem is
> bigger than the core interpreter.
>
> Glyph wants a PSF fund to a usability study on Python. There were a
> few other suggestion on PSF support for tooling development.
>
> Pyston
> =======
>
> Kevin Modzelewski explained how they are rebuilding a complete vm
> which is targeted to Python, this also means too much work but one can
> customize. It is targeting Python2.7 as Dropbox runs on it.
>
>
> At this time of discussion Nick pointed us to
> `http://speed.python.org/ <http://speed.python.org/>`_, he asked if
> any of the implementations
> wants to maintain it. We need more volunteers for that, target is to
> have a common set of tests to benchmark different implementations.
>
> Mypy project
> =============
>
> Jukka Lehtosalo gave a talk on his `mypy project
> <http://mypy-lang.org>`_ which uses Python3 function annotations. Greg
> P Smith pointed us to
> a similar kind of Google project,
> `https://github.com/google/pytypedecl
> <https://github.com/google/pytypedecl>`_.
>
> Notes from teaching and outreach
> =================================
>
> Selena Deckelmann talked about few pain points from teaching and outreach.
>
> * Website is confusing. (Should I go for Python2 or Python3?)
> * Packaging and installer problem
> * So many different bug tracking system is also confusing
> * OPW program for Cpython, this is the first year we are participating.
> * Jessica McKellar will write "brand new coder tutorials".
>

I believe this was mostly about collecting new coder resources that already
exist, but are hard to find (and to qualitatively judge.)


>
> Mercurial
> ===========
>
> Matt Mackall talked about Mercurial's painpoints for Python3. It
> currently works for 2.4-2.7, though he might drop 2.4 support in near
> future.
> It will be on 2.7 till RHEL7 is not EOL. He also said startup time is
> concern for him. Only big positive point he can see in Python3 is SNI.
> That feature allows you to do HTTPS to non ip based virtual hosts.
> Porting whole Mercurial to Python 3 is still a very big work. They had
> two gsoc students in last two years.
>
> From here the talks suddenly moved into mythical Python 2.8 which we
> will not have, nope, sorry :) Guido wants a feature list from the
> people who are asking for 2.8 to understand better. We also want to
> help developers to make a single source for Python 2 and Python 3
> release less painful.
>
> Python 2.7 is alive and in good health and support will continue on the
> same.
>
> Few points were talked about from 3.5, like byte formatting, unicode
> surrogate, binary mode cleans for bytes etc.
>
> Kushal
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-- 
Thomas Wouters <thomas at python.org>

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