This page is aimed to be the starting point of collection for ideas for projects which could benefit the Python community, either projects that help the Python core, develop the standard library, third party packages, or more.

This page was created to foster collaboration on ideas regarding projects that could be done as part of the [http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html Google Summer of Code].

There is a related page to discuss the ./MentorshipCoordination side of the project.

Ideally, each project below should be expanded into a more full-featured description, so that people can judge the value, the effort involved, the size of the project (takes a week, takes a month, etc.), who knows enough about the project to help out, etc.

(Formatting:

• Topics with a paragraph or so of thought, start new a page with a . in front of the wiki word, i.e.  ./CleanupUrlLibProject to scope the new pages a bit

• for topics not fleshed out beyond a sentence or two, indent the sentence six spaces on a newline below the topic title/summary; this is to make sure that the description does not overpower the title/summary

)

• CleanupUrlLibProject

  • This idea of cleaning up and modernizing code in the stdlib is not restricted in any way to the urllib family of modules. If there is another module(s) that you would like to work on feel free to propose it! And if you have an idea for new functionality for the stdlib feel free to propose that as well!

• CompleteSslSupport

• Add a MemoryUsageProfiler to python

  • Currently it is almost impossible to figure out where memory is going in a large python program, especially if you have C extensions loaded. It'd be nice to know where the memory is going, if there are circular references, or if objects are being held too long.

• JythonProjects

  • Port IDLE from tk to swing, OS X improvements.
• Port stdlib modules from C to Python

  • Jython, IronPython, and PyPy all require standard library modules to be written in pure Python; porting C-based standard library modules to Python helps them.

• Unicode on Windows extensions
  • add unicode returning versions of sys.argv and os.environ; unicode accepting functions for running processes like os.popen*, os.system, os.exec*. After experience implementing some of these, the implementer should look at ways to simplify coding functions that take either unicode or byte strings. The existing unicode method implementations such as open do not work in 32 bit unicode string builds so this could be fixed along with finding a way to make coding extension functions for either 16 or 32 bit wide unicode strings easier. -- Neil

• ./PythonWebProgrammingIdeas

• SpeedUpInterpreterStartup

• RestrictedExecution

• ./PythonGarbageCollected

• ./WebServiceStack

• ./PythonDocInOpenEbook

• fix some old, old bugs in sourceforge
  • This is not a high profile, totally new idea, but maybe even helps the community more than founding another web framework

• Add EPS import to ReportLab PDF library

  • http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.reportlab.user/4052

• make [http://www.spread.org/ Spread] Python Binding compile with Python 2.4 on win32 (and possibly other major platforms)

• A better way to create (singlefile) executeables by bringing the advantages of py2exe and McMillans compiler together.

  • Note that the next version of py2exe will allow this - it's 95% finished in CVS already -- theller
• PEP 337: Logging Support for Standard Library
• Enhance the Python catalog of modules

  • http://www.python.org/pypi -- contact [http://www.python.org/sigs/catalog-sig/ Catalog-SIG] for more.

• Work on the Parrot VM's Python implementation

• Revive the code or idea from [http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg/python_gui/ PyGUI] or [http://anygui.sourceforge.net/ Anygui]

  • These are Python-level cross-toolkit compatibility libraries for GUI work. Currently there is a "live" project called [http://developer.berlios.de/projects/cimarron/ Cimarron] along these lines.

• Flesh out the widget library and improve the documentation of [http://www.zephyrfalcon.org/labs/wax.html Wax]

  • Wax is [http://www.zephyrfalcon.org/ Hans Nowak]'s [http://mail.python.org/pipermail/europython/2005-April/004975.html Pythonic] wrapper for [http://www.wxpython.org/ wxPython].

• An educational programming environment similar to [http://dewey.soe.berkeley.edu/boxer.html/index.html Boxer] for Python

  • Kind of a visual programming environment.
• A Notebook interface for IPython:

  • IPython [http://ipython.scipy.org] is a command-line only system. This would extend it to be embedded in a GUI, in a way allowing Python documents to include text and inline graphics, much like the live notebooks of systems like Mathematica [http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica] or Maple [http://www.maplesoft.com]. This project would be supported by direct help from the IPython lead developer, just contact him either directly or via the IPython development list [http://scipy.net/mailman/listinfo/ipython-dev]

Less fleshed-out ideas:

• ProfileReplacementProject

• ./EnhancedIterTools

• ./ExploreFunctionalProgramming

• MakeXmlrpclibAsynchronous