Development: CPython, Node.js, Java, LLVM, GitHub and More
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Rationalizing Python's APIs
CPython is the reference implementation of Python, so it is, unsurprisingly, the target for various language-extension modules. But the API and ABI it provides to those extensions ends up limiting what alternative Python implementations—and even CPython itself—can do, since those interfaces must continue to be supported. Beyond that, though, the interfaces are not clearly delineated, so changes can unexpectedly affect extensions that have come to depend on them. A recent thread on the python-ideas mailing list looks at how to clean that situation up.
On July 11, Victor Stinner floated a draft of an as yet unnumbered Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP) entitled "Hide implementation details in the C API". The idea is to remove CPython implementation choices from the API so that different experimental choices can be made while still supporting the C-based extensions (NumPy and SciPy in particular). As he noted, other attempts to provide an alternate Python implementation (e.g. PyPy), which are typically created to enhance the language's performance, have largely run aground because they cannot directly support these all-important extensions.
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Ideas versus implementation
A short sub-thread on the python-ideas mailing list provides some "food for thought" about the purpose and scope of that list, but also some things to perhaps be considered more widely. When discussing new features and ideas, it is common for the conversation to be somewhat hypothetical, but honing in on something that could be implemented takes a fair amount of work for those participating. If the feature is proposed and championed by someone who has no intention of actually implementing it, should the thread come with some kind of warning?
The thread in question started in mid-June with a query from Thomas Güttler about why the socket module returns plain tuples rather than named tuples. The reception to the idea was mostly positive and there were some discussions of how it might be done; Guido van Rossum indicated that he would be favorable to the change as well. But, apparently Güttler was not actually planning to implement the change, as he currently does not have the time to do so.
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Tired: Java. Desired: Node.js. Retired: The suggestion a JavaScript runtime is bonkers
As the Node Summit got underway in San Francisco on Wednesday, Charles Beeler, general partner at Rally Ventures, said the Node community has come a long way since 2012, when everyone was talking about Node.js and no one was using it.
Initially released in 2009, the JavaScript runtime environment now has enough users and momentum that the nonprofit Node.js Foundation feels comfortable claiming that "Node.js is emerging as a universal development framework for digital transformation with a broad diversity of applications."
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[llvm-dev] [5.0.0 Release] Release Candidate 1 tagged
5.0.0-rc1 has just been tagged.
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LLVM 5.0-RC1 Up For Testing
Following the LLVM 5 branching earlier this week, release manager Hans Wennborg has now tagged the first release candidate.
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Software Development as mathematician in academia – everyone bites the dust
Is it possible to do software development, mathematical or not, as mathematician in academics? This is a question I was asking myself recently a lot, seeing my own development from logician at a state university getting rid of foreigners to software developer. And then, a friend pointed me to this very depressing document: The origins of SageMath by William Stein, the main developer of SageMath. And I realized that it seems to be a global phenomenon that mathematicians who are interested in software development have to leave academics. What a sad affair.
[...]
My assumption was that this hits only on non-tenured staff, the academic precariat. It is shocking to see that even William Stein with a tenure position is leaving academics.
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Qualcomm's neural network SDK made free for all comers [Ed: Proprietary still. Free as in "lockin".]/
TensorFlow is also name-checked in the announcement, and since the SDK's page also mentions convolutional neural network support, Vulture South reckons Cuda ConvaNet (part of last year's announcement) is also in there somewhere.
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GitHub wants more new contributors, because that's what GitHub is for
GitHub has added a chunk of features it says will help new users and projects build better communities.
Singing the “teamwork” song, the organisation says the features announced here are about making it easier to contribute to projects.
For project maintainers, new contributors will show a “first time contributor badge” attached to their pull requests. That will become a “contributor” badge when the PR is merged, and there's an additional flag to help maintainers “separate signal from noise” during flamewars (politely described by GitHub as “lengthy or heated discussions”).
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