[pypy-svn] rev 1315 - pypy/trunk/doc/funding

[lac at codespeak.net]

Author: lac
Date: Mon Sep 15 21:21:42 2003
New Revision: 1315

Modified:
   pypy/trunk/doc/funding/B3.0_impact.txt
Log:
first draft


Modified: pypy/trunk/doc/funding/B3.0_impact.txt
==============================================================================
--- pypy/trunk/doc/funding/B3.0_impact.txt	(original)
+++ pypy/trunk/doc/funding/B3.0_impact.txt	Mon Sep 15 21:21:42 2003
@@ -10,23 +10,159 @@
 
 (Recommended length ­ three pages)
 
-One of the greatest threats to European competitiveness is its
-dependence upon Proprietary Closed Source Software, mostly made in the
-United States.  This is not only the matter of money being spent
-in the United States is money that is not being spent here, although
-that effect matters as well.  There are two more serious risks.
-The first is a threat-in-the-present.
+This project has direct relevance to European competitiveness.  Europe
+is the acknowledged world leader in handheld, mobile, and embedded
+devices.  But people working in such industries have long desired a
+high level language with a very small footprint.  They wish to use
+only the language features which they need.  But modern languages
+are chock full of features designed for the developer to use when
+developing software.  The new innovative concept of Object Spaces,
+pioneered by PyPy makes the construction of tiny Object Spaces,
+suitable for running on the smallest devices straight-forward.
+A Python with greater speed will seemlessly improve the offerings of
+those European Companies who develop using Python.  These two reasons
+make the Python Business Forum quite excited about PyPy.
+
+Morever, a great many companies, in deciding what language to develop
+in, reject Very High Level Languages, despite their known advantages
+for programmer productivity and code-reuse and maintainablity because
+the code produced simply does not run fast enough.  If we give them
+a *fast* VHLL, they will switch.
+
+Furthermore, one of the greatest threats to European competitiveness
+is its dependence upon Proprietary Closed Source Software, mostly made
+in the United States.  This is not only the matter of money being
+spent in the United States is money that is not being spent here,
+although that effect matters as well.  There are two more serious
+risks.  The first is a threat in the present.
 
 Any company which writes its software in a Proprietary, Closed Source
-language is at the mercy of its software provider.
+language is dependent upon its software provider.  If you have a bug,
+you must wait for them to fix it.  If this bug is not a high priority
+for them, you can wait a long time.  If you have access to the source
+you always have the option of fixing it yourself, or hiring somebody
+else to do that.  But this is not the greatest of your worries.  You
+are at constant risk of having your software provider discontinue
+support for your language.  This is a real threat, not a theoretical
+one.  In 2002, Microsoft announced that it would no longer be
+supporting Visual Basic 6.0 after the year 2005.  All Visual Basic
+Developers have been told to convert their code to run under
+Microsoft's new .NET framework.  Before that, in 2001 Microsoft
+immediately stopped supporting its Visual J++ language, meant to be a
+direct competitor with Java, after settling a lawsuit with Sun
+Microsystems.  No migration path was specified.  Microsoft is making
+these decisions because they make business sense for Microsoft,
+regardless of the effects on European software developers.
+
+The second threat Closed Source makes to European competitiveness is
+more insidious, and more long term.  A good workman knows his tools.
+This is much more than the theoretical knowledge of how his tools
+ought to work, according to principles learned in school.  The way
+car mechanics know how cars work is distinctly different from the
+what you would know if you had attended classes on 'the principles of
+the internal combustion engine', let alone what you need to know to
+just drive the thing.
+
+Right now, in Europe, we don't have enough of the software equivalents
+of car-mechanics.  And most of them live in academia, where they know
+the intimate details of languages that never get used in industrial
+applications.  The world needs Formula-One race car mechanics, indeed,
+but it has a much greater need for people who know how to repair the
+family car.
+
+It is not as if there is a shortage of people who would be interested
+in learning such things, if the source were made available.  Many people
+have taken this step by learning how CPython does its stuff.  But still
+there is a barrier.  If you want to know how C Python does things,
+you need to learn C.  C is a notoriously difficult language to learn.
+
+But let me quote from an article posted to the Python-in-Education
+mailing list.
+
+FIXME -- I promised Arthur I would fix any typos.
+
+Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2003 11:52:05 -0400
+From: Arthur <ajsiegel at optonline.net>
+To: edu-sig at python.org
+Subject: [Edu-sig] re : If the PyPy Project ...
+
+List-Id: Python in education <edu-sig.python.org>
+
+Terry -
+
+>Since I presume the goal of PyPy is to implement *Python* in Python,
+>wouldn't the implementation language be rather insignificant to an
+>end-user such as an educator?  Why would it be "better" than >CPython?
+
+For whatever reason, the complex built_in  and the cmath module, implemented
+in Python, are part of the early pypy codebase. As I had been spending some
+time in the complex realm with PyGeo - a simple verions of the complex
+realm, as these things go - Laura's post gave me the impetus to try to
+plugin the pypy implmentations.
+
+Only got stuck on the typing issue.  My code tests for
+instance(object,complex).  The pypy complexobject, unadorned, is a class -
+and fails the test.  But that leads me into a deeper look at some of the
+pypy codebase, trying to understand a little bit of how this kind of issue
+are to be dealt with.  Not that I got there, yet - but I did seem to have an
+avenue to explore I would not have with CPython - as someone who doesn't C,
+and has no intention of trying, seriously, to do so.
+
+As someone living within the limits of having Python as my only real
+language, I think that pypy should open things up for me considerably.  It
+will make Python, I believe, a more attractive educational language, because
+it will make someone with a strong foundation in Python - as the language of
+choice - a more self-sufficient programmer.
+
+Presumably - the point is - there will be less cases where the right
+approach would be an extension module in C or C++, and a sense of
+fundamental compromise sould one not be equipped to go there.  Many
+thousands of folks - using VB and the like - already do involed, highly
+performing realworld applications and make nice livings doing so, without
+being equipped to do C.  I am thinking that pypy would put Python more
+squarely in that "space".
+
+Is any of this so, or just hope?
+
+Art
+
+
+_______________________________________________
+Edu-sig mailing list
+Edu-sig at python.org
+http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
+------------------------------------------------------
+
+Here is somebody who is hoping we can give him a language he can understand.
+Python already is an excellent teaching language.  PyPy will be a better one.
+
+This project has to be done at the European or the International level.
+That's where we all live.
+
+Since Education is a primary goal of the project, we will take every
+opportunity to disseminate PyPy.  The source will always be freely
+available from our website.  We will continue to give talks about PyPy
+at EuroPython, Python-UK, OSCON (the International Open Source
+Conference) the International Python Conference, and <what did I leave
+out> others.  ADD SOME GOOD ONES THAT ARE FOR CSC ACADEMICS
+
+ASK STOCKHOLM -- will the EU pay for us to go to conferences?  even
+ones we were going to attend anyway?
+
+These talks will create interest as well as teach
+techniques.  We will submit a PEP and push to get PyPy made the reference 
+implementation of the Python programming language.  We will continue
+to discuss PyPy on our own mailing lists, as well as other Python
+mailing lists such as the Python-in-Education list, and the Usenet
+Newsgroup comp.lang.python.  We already have an #irc channel, 
+irc.freenode.net where live online discussions happen, and where
+we communicate with each other while we are apart.  Beyond that --
+we are willing to take any actions the EU would like to fund.  
+
+Ask Stockholm We think you get no money for this in a STREP.  True?
 
-these large American companies.  And this is a real, and
-not theoretical threat.  In 2002, Microsoft announced that it would no
-longer be supporting Visual Basic 6.0.  after the year 2005.  All Visual
-Basic Developers have been told to convert their code to run under
-Microsoft's new .NET framework.  In 2001 Microsoft immediately stopped
-supporting its Visual J++ language, meant to be a direct competitor with
-Java, after settling a lawsuit with Sun Microsystems.  Microsoft is
-making these decisions because they make business sense for Microsoft,
-regardless of the effects on businesses who develop software using
-Microsoft proprietary software.
+ASK STOCKHOLM -- 
+can we get some money to give Freenode?
+re: 'Indicate what account is taken of other national or international
+research activities.'  -- Samuele and Armin read the literature all
+the time.  What do I say?