[pypy-dev] Re: inquiry: phd positions

[Jacob Hallen]

Hi Jakob,

I think we can safely say that the Pypy project contains several areas that 
are suitable for PhD level research. Just to mention a few:

- Modularisation of the source language, allowing expansion and contraction of 
the available syntax and semantics.

- Adaption of the platform to handle multiple source languages.

-Use of the Pypy architecture for distributed computing, multiprocessing and 
handling of security issues at interpreter level.

- Various aspects of code generation including translation, JIT 
specialisation, garbage collection and backend production.

- Pypy integration with existing platforms, like Java and CLI.

måndag 03 april 2006 09.55 skrev Jakob Praher:
> >> so my naive question is, whether you have any PhD projects in this
> >> area or could point me to some further information. I would be very
> >> interested to hearing from you.
> >
> > Well, we certainly hope that there are interesting lines of
> > investigation in PyPy.  To be more specific, we probably need you to
> > be more specific about your interests too.
>
> See above. My biggest concern is whether there could be some real
> colaboration with a university. It is quite hard to do this kind of
> research in Linz. Mostly because of a lack of support from the
> university side.
>
> > If you are asking "do we have pots of cash lying around to fund PhDs",
> > then I'm pretty sure the answer is "no".  PyPy's funding from the EU
> > was not structured in this sort of way (AIUI).
>
> No I just wanted to say that it would be very interesting to work in an
> area like dynamic object oriented runtimes. But there are many things
> why I am asking this out loud:
>
> * Is there any university involved in this project?
> * What area of PyPy needs some research in the size of a PhD project?

Heinrich Heine University of Duesseldorf is a member of the project, with 
professor Leuchel being formally responsible. In practice, it is Armin Rigo 
and Michael Hudson who are financed to be working on Pypy. As of this week 
Carl Friedrich Boltz will be doing his Bachelor of Science there, focusing on 
Pypy.

While professor Leuchel is a very open minded person, who seems to enjoy 
giving people the liberty to pursue the kind of research they are interested 
in, I have no clue as to what the policy of the CS department or the 
university are concerning the acceptance of PhD students. I hope what I have 
said will help you get started on your own investigation.

In the meantime, I hope you will have time to get acquainted with the code 
base. You are also welcome to join one of our sprints, where you will get a 
chance to collaborate with the developers on specific issues. The most 
convenient place for you in the reasonably near future will probably be the 
sprint right after Europython at CERN in Switzerland. We do have an open 
sprint in Japan before that, but it is a long way to travel and we will 
probably have as many newcomers as we can cope with.

Best of luck

Jacob Hallén