[SNIP]The AST branch has been "nearly complete" for several Python versions now. The last time a serious effort was made was in May I believe, but it wasn't enough to merge the code back into 2.4, alas.
It would be a real shame if this code was abandoned.
[SNIP]So, I'm pleading. Please, someone, either from the established crew of developers or a new volunteer (or more than one!), try to help out to complete the work on the AST branch and merge it into 2.5.
Please, anyone? Raymond? Neil? Facundo? Brett?
Funny you should send this out today. I just did some jiggling with my schedule so I could take the undergrad language back-end course this quarter. This led to me needing to take a grad-level projects class in Spring. And what was the first suggestion my professor had for that course credit in Spring?
Finish the AST branch. I am dedicated to finishing the AST branch as soon as my thesis is finished, class credit or no. I just can't delve into that large of a project until I get my school stuff in order. But if I get to do it for my class credit I will be able to dedicate 4 units of work to it a week (about 8 hours minimum).
Plus there is the running tradition of sprinting on the AST branch at PyCon. I was planning on shedding my bug fixing drive at PyCon this year and sprinting with (hopefully) Jeremy, Neal, Tim, and Neil on the AST branch as a prep for working on it afterwards for my class credit.
Although if someone can start sooner than by all means, go for it! I can find something else to get credit for (such as finishing my monster of a paper comparing Python to Java; 34 single-spaced pages just covering paradigm support and the standard libraries so far). And obviously help would be great since it isn't a puny codebase (4,000 lines so far for the CST->AST and AST->bytecode code).
If anyone would like to see the current code, check out ast-branch from CVS (read the dev FAQ on how to check out a branch from CVS). Read Python/compile.txt for an overview of how the thing works and such.
It will get done, just don't push for a 2.5 release within a month. =)
-Brett _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
