EP2008: PyPy meets Jython

One of the great events at EuroPython 2008 were our chats and meetings with the Jython and Sun people. The Jython people recently are pushing into releasing Python version 2.5 and they currently pursue many interesting sub projects. Coincidentally, PyPy also has tons of interesting areas and results :) So we eventually got into brainstorming a number of possible technical collab ideas. Further below is a first list as i wrote it down from our 10 people PyPy / Jython 30 minute close up meeting yesterday. It felt great to be able to talk to the Jython people this way - kudos to Sun for their clear commitments and open ways to go about things! I sense a genuine interest on fair collaboration with non-java developer communities. Seems like they are serious about not focusing on "Java this", "Java that" anymore but rather focus on the JVM platform. Good! And about language independent interest in ambitious technology. Even Better! I am tensed to see how things go from here. So here the list of technical collab ideas:

• ctypes - try to create _rawffi module in Java for Jython, which will enable Jython to reuse our existing ctypes implementation (and have PyPy use the Jython-rawffi for its own for PyPy.JVM)
• generally see to share work / (continue) collaborate regarding extension modules
• Jython/PyPy (and eventually IronPython): document known differences to CPython, maybe in a PEP
• Python Interpreter for Jython (in order to run CPython's .pyc files): re-use pypy's bytecode evaluator, implement a "Jython object space".
• re-use rpython-extension modules for jython (e.g. SRE), by compiling them to Java and reusing as a native library.
• collaborate on testing framework / benchmarking, have a common site to show test results
• make py.test compatible with jython
• come up with a set of "pure Python language" tests, which would gather and refactor tests from CPython, PyPy and Jython.
• look into using java types / jython approaches for implementing free threading.
• share knowledge regarding JIT / psyco

If you have any more ideas, comments or would like to join efforts, let us know! Cheers and thanks to Ted Leung, Frank Wierzbiki, Jim Baker and Tobias Ivarsson from Sun and Jython fame respectively, Holger