Post-PyCon Depression

I was able to attend my third PyCon this weekend in Santa Clara, CA.

Usually, I step through each talk that I’ve attended and document my thoughts.  A large review post, really. High points and low points. I think I’m going to skip that this time around and concentrate on what has really become a bit of a reoccurring problem for me (no, not a real problem, don’t worry). 

Each year I leave PyCon feeling pretty involved in the community.  This usually means studying CPython code for a couple of weeks afterwards, fixing a small collection of bugs found on the issue tracker, and looking for a larger project.   I’ve even contemplated sending in a contributor’s agreement such that I can submit changes back to the little interpreter that has been paying my bills for the past seven years.

Last year, for example, I implemented a “go” keyword — down to the byte code level — just to learn how things are wired up. It was quite a rewarding experience as I got to touch areas of the codebase that usually simply annoy me with cryptic errors.

But, time and time again, I wind up burning out after not finding anything substantial to contribute back. There does seem to be quite a push to get new “core developers”, though I’m not sure where to jump on in.  For example, the following resources are wonderful:

I’m fairly determined to avoid that crash this time through by simply asking. Python world, who wants help? Is there still a need for new people on the CPython proper? Or, have we largely hit critical mass there? Would time be better spent on a third party component? Standard library improvements? Is it worth mailing in that contributor agreement in hopes of finding something worthwhile to chip away at?

Posted on March 12, 2012 at 3:35 pm by Jeff McNeil · Permalink
In: development, open source, pycon, python

4 Responses

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  1. Written by r.david.murray
    on March 12, 2012 at 9:15 pm
    Permalink

    Plaese do help out CPython if tou are so moved. No we haven’t hit critical mass, there are still far more issues on the tracker that have patches than we have active committers to review and commit them. We need review help. Review and advocate for issues and before you lnow it we’ll be asking you to start committing them yourself…

  2. Written by Jeff McNeil
    on March 13, 2012 at 2:40 am
    Permalink

    I honestly would love to help out, though I always have issues finding an entry point. If reviewing existing issues is the most helpful, then that’s what I’ll put some time into doing.

  3. Written by Kay Hayen
    on March 13, 2012 at 4:28 am
    Permalink

    Jeff,

    if you want to join me on Nuitka (a pure Python compiler, largely based on CPython with full language support), you are more than welcome to do so, this one really will make a difference.

    Knowing CPython internals is very beneficial there and big differences can be made easily by progressing the project.

    Thanks,
    Kay

  4. Written by Eli Bendersky
    on March 13, 2012 at 12:05 pm
    Permalink

    The ElementTree XML parser needs a lot of work. It’s an important module – probably the most widely used XML parser/builder in the standard library. Until recently it was relatively neglected, mainly due to some political issues which were resolved a couple of months ago. Now there are a lot of open issues and a lot of work to do both in the C extension module (_elementtree.c), the Python module and the documentation.

    Feel free to contact me if you need more details.

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