[Numpy-discussion] My GSoC Proposal to Implement a Subset of NumPy for PyPy

[Dan Roberts]

Hello NumPy Users,
    Hi everybody, my name is Dan Roberts, and my Google Summer of Code
proposal was categorized under NumPy rather than PyPy, so it will end up
being reviewed by mentors for the NumPy project.  I'd like to take this
chance to introduce myself and my proposal.
    I hadn't prepared for review by the NumPy mentors, but this can make my
proposal stronger than before.  With a bit of help from all of you, I can
dedicate my summer to creating more useful code than I would have
previously. I realize that from the perspective of NumPy, my proposal might
seem lacking, so I'd like to also invite the scrutiny of all of the readers
of this list.
    Why should we bother reimplimenting anything?  PyPy, for those who are
unfamiliar, has the ability to Just-in-Time compile itself and programs that
it's running.  One of the major advantages of this is that code operating on
NumPy arrays could potentially be written in pure-python, with normal
looping constructs, and be nearly as fast as a ufunc painstakingly crafted
in C.  I'd love to see as much Python and as little C as possible, and I'm
sure I'm not alone in that wish.
    A short introduction: I've been coding in Python for the past few years,
and have increasingly become interested in speeding up what has become my
favorite language. To that end I've become interested in both the PyPy
project and the NumPy projects. I've spent a fair amount of time frustrating
the PyPy developers with silly questions, written a bit of code for them,
and now my GSoC proposal involves both them, and NumPy.
    Finally, I'd like to ask all of you: what features are most important to
you? It's not practical, wise, or even possible for me to reimpliment more
than a small portion of NumPy, but if I can address the most important
parts, maybe I can make this project useful enough for some of you to use,
and close enough for the rest of you that I can drum up some support for
more development in the future.
     My proposal lives at
http://codespeak.net/~dan/gsoc/micronumpy.htmlthanks for making it
this far through my long winded introduction!  I
welcome all constructive criticism and thoughts.

Thanks,
Daniel Roberts
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