On Tue, 20 Oct 2020 at 14:01, Mark Shannon <m...@hotpy.org> wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> CPython is slow. We all know that, yet little is done to fix it.
>
> I'd like to change that.
> I have a plan to speed up CPython by a factor of five over the next few
> years. But it needs funding.
>
> I am aware that there have been several promised speed ups in the past
> that have failed. You might wonder why this is different.
>
> Here are three reasons:
> 1. I already have working code for the first stage.
> 2. I'm not promising a silver bullet. I recognize that this is a
> substantial amount of work and needs funding.
> 3. I have extensive experience in VM implementation, not to mention a
> PhD in the subject.
>
> My ideas for possible funding, as well as the actual plan of
> development, can be found here:
>
> https://github.com/markshannon/faster-cpython
>
> I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

A very blunt (apologies if it's too blunt) restatement of this
proposal (at least stage 1) seems to me to be

"Give me $250k, and donate $250k to the PSF for ongoing support, and
I'll let you have code that I've already written that gives CPython a
50% speedup. If my code doesn't deliver a 50% speedup, I'll give the
money back. No money, no code. We can also discuss 3 more incremental
steps of the same sort of magnitude, but I don't have code already
written for them".

Honestly, if someone's able to get together $500k, that sounds like a
fairly good deal (no risk). If you're asking for a commitment to the
full $2M, even if stages 2-4 are contingent on delivery, that's a bit
of a harder ask (because the cashflow implication of committing that
sort of money becomes relevant). But maybe someone can do it.

I'm fine with this, I guess. I don't have $500k to offer myself, so
all my agreement is worth is that I don't have a problem with this
much work being funded/provided via one big donation. I assume that
part of "delivery" would involve code review, etc. - we wouldn't be
bypassing normal development workflow. So there's still work to be
done in putting the code through review, responding to review
comments, etc, and ensuring that the code is delivered in a form that
the core devs are happy to maintain (PSF donation for support
notwithstanding). Actually, a chunk of that support allocation to the
PSF might be needed to pay for reviewers, if (as I suspect) this is a
large and complex PR.

What I don't see is where the money's coming from. It's fine to ask,
but will anyone come up with that sort of funding?

Paul
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