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

[Brett Cannon]

On 1/12/06, Bill Janssen <janssen at parc.com> wrote:
> Brett,
>
> How about building a system that compiles a Python program (possibly
> annotated) to an AJAX program?  That is, it analyzes the program to
> determine what's appropriate and possible for client-side and
> server-side, figures out the optimal network API (reduce latency,
> reduce calls, reduce data transfer, increase responsiveness),
> generates server-side Jython to run in Tomcat (or Python for
> mod_python), and client-side XHTML, CSS, and Javascript to implement
> the browser-based portion of the application.  Oddities of browser
> implementations and Javascript VMs would be contained in the compiler
> and automatically pushed into the generated code.
>
> This would be a tremendously useful advance in building distributed
> systems that work with the Web.  The current approach to AJAX is a bit
> like carpentry with old hand tools.  You'd probably also push Python
> to higher levels of language-ness.
>

Hmm.  It's an idea.  I also thought of Python -> JavaScript compiler
since JavaScript is not fun and getting to test using Python might be
cool.  But not sure how useful that would be.  Plus I bet someone has
does this with Java or something.

-Brett