[pypy-dev] *FREE on-site* PyPy helper in exchange for PyPy MENTORING!?....

[Beatrice During]

Hi there

On Wed, 7 Sep 2005 seberino at spawar.navy.mil wrote:

> There is a slight chance I may be able to convince US Navy to let me
> visit Europe for a few months to learn about cutting edge European
> software technologies.
>
> This may be the chance I've been looking for
> to talk about PyPy source with gurus *in person* to come up to speed
> fast on it and be a real contributor to PyPy project.

Well - thanks for being so interested in PyPy! I will try to answer some 
of your questions - I am sure some of the "gurus" will fill in as well.

> Any suggestions are desperately needed....
>
> ------------------
>
> What can I give back to encourage someone to mentor me?  (Something
> that involved learning the source really well like helping comment
> the code and document the source is an idea.)

We are currently putting a lot of effort into documentation on several key 
aspects of the latest 0.7 release. Im sure that this documentation will be 
a good way to start identifying where you have more questions. Then 
pypy-dev is the right place to post them.

Give back? Hmm - we always appreciate feedback on tests as well as 
documentation! Your question about mentoring is a bit tricky - it would 
depend on what kind of questions you have after reading the updated 
documentation (which will be ready by the end of September).

> Who would be a good person to mentor me who can help me understand the
> source code really well?

Well - key "gurus" are Holger Krekel, Armin Rigo, Samuele Pedronis, 
Christian Tismer, Michael Hudson  and they are somewhat busy  with writing 
documentation ;-)  We also have lots of other very skilled and experienced
developers contributing on pypy-dev - your questions will be answered but 
I think it could be tricky to "assign" a mentor....

> Where are most PyPy developers working? Perhaps
> multiple PyPy gurus are located in similar location?

Well - Gothenburg in Sweden is growing into some kind of PyPy center 
with Samuele Pedronis, Armin Rigo and Anders Chrigström working (mostly) 
from there. We also have Holger Krekel, Carl Friedrich Bolz and Christian 
Tismer in Germany (Hildesheim etc)

> Are there any conferences and meetings I should make sure to attend?

You are welcome to our sprints, unfortunately most of them are held in 
Europe. We sprint every 6th week (we aim for that at least) and sprinting 
is a great way to dive into the codebase relatively quickly (via 
tutorials, "gurus" and pairprogramming. Next sprint is in Paris (10-17th 
October and we probably are having a sprint in early December (location 
not decided yet). Please join our mailinglist pypy-sprint at codespeak.net 
for ongoing information.

Conferences - mostly in Europe. We sprinted at PyCon this year and are 
currently discussing wether we will sprint there next year. But some of us 
are definitely showing up - maybe that would be a good place to meet?

Europython is also a sure bet if you can come over that is.
We are currently planning our attendance to conferences the upcoming year 
and we will post this info on codespeak and to pypydev during this month.

> What time frame is a good idea?
> Any other thoughts?

Just a thank you for your interest!

> Thanks!
>
> Chris Seberino

Cheers

Beatrice Düring/assistant project manager PyPy
( a non developer BTW ;-)