Facebook owner Meta has donated $300,000 to the Python Software Foundation (PSF), the group that brings together developers of the core Python programming language and maintains Core Python (CPython), the free programming language that powers most machine learning and artificial intelligence applications.
“Python is very important to Meta,” the foundation said, noting that PyTorch is built on Python, accelerating the move from ML research and prototyping to production within Meta and across the open ML ecosystem. -source.
Cinder is Meta’s performance-focused version of Python that makes Instagram work globally, while Pyre is a type checker used by thousands of Meta’s Python developers.
Developer in residence
Meta’s investment in the Python Software Foundation “will provide critical support to PSF and fund a second year of the Developer-in-Residence Program,” the Python Software Foundation said in a blog post.
PSF’s “Developer-in-Residence” program launched in 2021 and funds a full-time developer role for CPython. This initiative allowed the foundation to hire Łukasz Langa, Developer-in-Residence for CPython, who “reduced the backlog of pull requests and completed the migration from bugs.python.org to GitHub Issues, as well as mentoring new lead developers. »
“Being able to work full-time on Python is a dream come true for me. I am humbled and grateful for this opportunity, and now for the continued trust of PSF and Meta. I am extremely happy to be able to do this for another year. Having someone do code review full-time helps the rest of the team focus on what they do best. With a role that extends into 2023, I can start talking about longer-term contribution plans,” said Łukasz Langa.
Instagram’s Cinder Project
Meta (which is worth around $580 billion) will also bring Cinder’s upstream enhancements to Python and make Meta’s performance-focused version of CPython 3.8 available to as many people as possible. CPython is the basis for other implementations of the language like Anaconda and Cinder, Facebook’s implementation, which aims to improve Python’s performance for sharing photos on Instagram.
“Cinder is Meta’s performance-oriented version of CPython 3.8. It has been used for years as the production Python behind the Instagram server, as well as powering various other Python applications within Meta,” says CPython lead developer Dino Viehland.
Python creator Guido van Rossum, who now works at Microsoft, wants Python to be twice as fast to better compete with C-based languages, which work more closely with hardware.
Source: ZDNet.com