On December 19, the Python Software Foundation’s board voted to present Antoine Pitrou with a Community Service Award for the fourth quarter of 2012.
Antoine has been a prolific CPython contributor throughout his more than five years of work, with his efforts reaching many areas of the code. His improvements to CPython’s global interpreter lock, or GIL, in the fall of 2009 caught a lot of attention around the web. He was also a major contributor to Python 3’s I/O system for the 3.0 release, and his recent work on PEP 3151 to rework the OS and IO exception hierarchy was shipped in the 3.3 release.
His activity extends throughout the codebase and development process, where he’s active in bug triage and spends time in IRC. On top of the over 3000 commits made by Antoine since gaining access in June 2008, making him the seventh most active committer, he has been involved in several parts of the python.org infrastructure, including CPython’s buildbot system.
The Python Software Foundation and Python community thanks Antoine for his consistent efforts and excellent contributions!
News from the Python Software Foundation
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Stefan Krah chosen for Q4 Community Service Award
On December 19, the Python Software Foundation’s board voted to present Stefan Krah with a Community Service Award for the fourth quarter of 2012.
Stefan has been a CPython committer since April 2010 when his work on a C version of the decimal module was tracked in a Subversion branch tied to issue #7652, though his work began far before that. Stefah created the mpdecimal C library, an implementation of the General Decimal Arithmetic Specification, as a multi-platform project providing “correctly-rounded arbitrary precision decimal floating point arithmetic.” The cdecimal module utilizes mpdecimal to provide a much more performant decimal library for Python.
The code was checked in early this year in changeset 7355550d5357, in time for the release of CPython 3.3. As the What’s New in Python 3.3 document shows, cdecimal has proven to be significantly faster with speedups as high as 120x on a pi calculation benchmark. The mpdecimal quickstart page shows how to execute the code yourself, and even the telecom and database tests show speedups of 30x and 12x, respectively.
Stefan has also contributed to several other areas of the codebase, including work on PEP 3118 for Python 3.3. He also contributes changes to platforms such as HP-UX and AIX.
The Python Software Foundation and Python community thanks Stefan for his consistent efforts and excellent contributions!
Stefan has been a CPython committer since April 2010 when his work on a C version of the decimal module was tracked in a Subversion branch tied to issue #7652, though his work began far before that. Stefah created the mpdecimal C library, an implementation of the General Decimal Arithmetic Specification, as a multi-platform project providing “correctly-rounded arbitrary precision decimal floating point arithmetic.” The cdecimal module utilizes mpdecimal to provide a much more performant decimal library for Python.
The code was checked in early this year in changeset 7355550d5357, in time for the release of CPython 3.3. As the What’s New in Python 3.3 document shows, cdecimal has proven to be significantly faster with speedups as high as 120x on a pi calculation benchmark. The mpdecimal quickstart page shows how to execute the code yourself, and even the telecom and database tests show speedups of 30x and 12x, respectively.
Stefan has also contributed to several other areas of the codebase, including work on PEP 3118 for Python 3.3. He also contributes changes to platforms such as HP-UX and AIX.
The Python Software Foundation and Python community thanks Stefan for his consistent efforts and excellent contributions!
Thursday, December 06, 2012
PSF Moves to Require Code of Conduct for Conference Grants
On Wednesday, November 21, the Python Software Foundation’s board of directors voted on two resolutions on the topic of Codes of Conduct at Python conferences. As the Python conference landscape grows to include more events and attract more attendees, the Foundation looks to ensure that conferences, new and old, are being run in a way that is enjoyable for all.
The first resolution passed by the board serves as the Foundation’s recommendation that all Python conferences and related events create and apply a Code of Conduct. The board unanimously agreed on this point, suggesting that publicly documented expectations and plans of action are necessary when planning and running an event in our community.
The second resolution passed by the board serves as the Foundation’s requirement that all Python conferences and related events create and apply a Code of Conduct. Without a code in place, the Foundation will not fund the event.
PyCon US, the largest of the Python conferences, first implemented a Code of Conduct for the March 2012 conference. For PyCon 2013, the code was left the same, but comes with the addition of documented incident handling guidelines. Many conferences followed suit to add a code, such as PyOhio, pyArkansas, PyTexas, PyCon Canada, and others.
PyCon’s Code of Conduct is structured after one created by The Ada Initiative and others, available under the Creative Commons Zero license at http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy.
The first resolution passed by the board serves as the Foundation’s recommendation that all Python conferences and related events create and apply a Code of Conduct. The board unanimously agreed on this point, suggesting that publicly documented expectations and plans of action are necessary when planning and running an event in our community.
The second resolution passed by the board serves as the Foundation’s requirement that all Python conferences and related events create and apply a Code of Conduct. Without a code in place, the Foundation will not fund the event.
PyCon US, the largest of the Python conferences, first implemented a Code of Conduct for the March 2012 conference. For PyCon 2013, the code was left the same, but comes with the addition of documented incident handling guidelines. Many conferences followed suit to add a code, such as PyOhio, pyArkansas, PyTexas, PyCon Canada, and others.
PyCon’s Code of Conduct is structured after one created by The Ada Initiative and others, available under the Creative Commons Zero license at http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy.