[Python-Dev] Ph.D. dissertation ideas? (original) (raw)

Brett Cannon brett at python.org
Thu Jan 12 23:36:51 CET 2006

It is time once again in my educational career to come to python-dev for help for major project ideas. This time, though, it is for my Ph.D. dissertation (and thus can have larger scope than my masters thesis) but there are funding restrictions (and thus only certain areas I have possible funding for).

First off, there are two areas where I have possible funding: XML integration into programming languages and game scripting support (I have a third, AOP for anything, but I don't think AOP is a good match for Python and thus not considering it for Python work). The XML integration I have no direct ideas since I don't use XML. There is the possibility of doing something like the LINQ project (http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/future/linq/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dndotnet/html/linqprojectovw.asp) or something, but I don't know how useful that could be. It would have to be just as generic, though, as the LINQ project in terms of working with intefaces to be Pythonic so it might turn out to be more about language support for querying data.

For the game scripting, trying out the active objects for Python is a possibility (or something else that would help with concurrency). Since that could allow for agent objects to be more concurrent it can be argued that it would help with game scripting. I don't have any other ideas for the area of game scripting support.

Now I am not locked down to these areas, but they are what I have possible grant money for. If through some miracle someone out there wants to fund my Ph.D. and wants something else worked on for Python, don't be shy. =) Unfortunately I don't think the PSF is up for funding my Ph.D., else I would say I would work on whatever python-dev decided they wanted to worked on that could be done as a dissertation.

Anyway, any ideas are appreciated. There is no rush on this, either. Just getting this out there now while I am tentatively exploring possible topics.

-Brett

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