On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 6:37 PM, Arc Riley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Take it as FUD if you want.
>
> The truth of the matter is we have our timeline, and we need a
> language that is going to work for us, and neither Pyrex nor Cython
> fit the bill.  In our discussions tracking Cython's continuing
> changes, given the amount of work it'd take us to modify Cython to our
> needs and maintain a variant given radical changes being discussed, is
> completely unfeasible.
>
> You may want to consider, however, that while you have very good
> reasons for making choices, and I am not at all saying you should not
> be making those exact choices, those same choices don't work for
> everyone.
>

1. You wrote: "Cython was founded with the primary goal of remaining
compatible with Pyrex."

I started Cython, so I can say with certainty that the above
was absolutely not the primary goal for starting Cython.
The goals for Cython are listed on the cython website and
they are: "(1) good test suite, (2) easyinstall support,
(3) good documentation, (4) make cython part of Python
(like ctypes), (5) compile most python code, (6) mitigate
or eliminate the need for users to invoke the Python/C API
directly without sacrificing performance."

2. You write "Cython guys are obviously upset, because Greg didn't
consult -anyone- for even opinions before doing so, a behavior many of
us may recognize the author of Soya demonstrating frequently, and they
are realizing that their goal of remaining Pyrex-compatible puts them
at Greg's
mercy as far as language changes."

This is total FUD.   The Cython developers (1) in no way have that
goal, and (2) are certainly not "at Greg's mercy".

And by the way, if anything Greg has in my opinion
been tremendously supportive of Cython lately, having
joined the Cython mailing list, answering and asking
many questions, etc.  Thanks Greg!

3. "build the main mill [cython/pyrex fork] package
from scratch, using the wisdom of
the Cython guys (reverse engineering in some cases), even the people
working on Cython agree it needs to be rewritten since the barrier to
entry for new developers is obscenely high".

One person who is new to Cython made a claim on cython-devel
about the barrier to entry.  That is much different  than "the
people working on Cython
agreeing the barrier to entry for new developers is obscenely high".
There certainly is a barrier to entry -- Cython is a compiler of
a highly nontrivial language after all.  But I think describing
it as obscenely high due to the particular implementation is FUD.
And it is exactly the kind of FUD that will hurt the Cython project
right now.

Arc, I have nothing against you starting whatever C-extension
generating project you want, etc.  I hope the above helps clarify
some misunderstandings you might have about Cython/Pyrex.

 -- William
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