On Aug 26, 2009, at 8:35 PM, Robert Bradshaw wrote: > On Aug 26, 2009, at 11:23 AM, Dag Sverre Seljebotn wrote: > >> As many of you know me and Kurt attended SciPy 09. Four Cython- >> related >> events were held: >> >> - An introductory tutorial to Cython (by me) >> - A talk about Cython for numerics (by me again) >> - A talk on Fwrap (by Kurt) >> - A Cython BoF >> >> You can find links to slides and videos for the three first on >> http://conference.scipy.org. >> >> An intensive week like that makes me reflect on what Cython is good >> about, lacking, etc. etc. >> >> First of all, there seems to be quite a lot of interest in Cython, >> many >> thinks it is excellent, and many thanked me personally for our >> efforts. >> >> One thing that's also very interesting to me personally is that >> there's >> some talk of porting parts of NumPy over to Cython for easier >> Python 3 >> support. > > Sounds like things went really well. > >> Beyond that, I've got a nice list of topics for further >> improvement. For >> instance one thing that is very possible to fix was a real >> dealbreaker >> that some complained about, and in one case stopped somebody from >> recommending it to co-workers. It's always nice to get the "outside" >> perspective that I get when I present Cython to lots of people. >> >> BUT, I'm going to wait a little with presenting that list. It simply >> feels too depressing to discuss lots of new ideas etc. without >> dealing >> properly with how such ideas can ever be brought to life. In the end, >> what matters right now is to stabilize -unstable, get the GSoC work >> merged in, and get 0.12 released; which at the current pace should >> keep >> us busy for some months to come. >> >> On that note though: It seems to me that many has the impression that >> >> a) Cython is complicated technology which takes much work >> b) A lot of effort is put into steadily improving it >> >> BUT, I feel the reality is that >> >> a) Core developers can implement new features or fix bugs rather >> quickly >> b) Relatively little time is spent in total on Cython, compared to >> some >> other projects >> >> I don't mean to belittle the efforts Robert and Stefan and others >> have >> put into Cython; I just feel that the amount of work going on in >> Cython >> is really less than people think it is. >> >> Or put another way: Putting relatively little in can, at least at >> this >> point in Cython's development, yield high returns. > > [...] > >> Thoughts on the picture I'm painting? > > I think you've hit the nail on the head here. > > Personally, there are tons of things I'd love to do with Cython (many > of which you've listed), and I think it's headed in a very cool > direction, but what time I have is mostly going to higher-priority > tasks like work and school and 6 month old twin girls. (Also, for the > moment, as fun as hacking on Cython is, it unfortunately doesn't > directly contribute to thesis or job.) I'm confident that in the long > term (say, looking at the next year or maybe two)
Oops. I didn't finish my sentence. I'm confident that that we can hit most of the points on that feature list in the next year or two. - Robert _______________________________________________ Cython-dev mailing list [email protected] http://codespeak.net/mailman/listinfo/cython-dev
