The Python press release; happy Guido; finally an open
source device programming language. You'll recognize
the usual suspects.
Greg
http://www.endeavors.com/news/python.htm
Endeavors Technology Leads Small Device P2P Development and Ports Python to
the Palm Operating System
Software will also make it easier for developers to scale to a variety of
resource-constrained platforms including set-tops, phones, PDAs, and other
consumer devices for wireless, in-car, gaming, and home automation
applications.
Irvine (CA) and Reading (England), February 23, 2001: Computer scientists at
Endeavors Technology have successfully developed a highly optimized, open
source port of Python to the Palm OS® platform to stimulate interest in
creating Python-based applications for Palm™ handheld computers and other
devices that use the Palm operating system. This complements Endeavors'
peer-to-peer software development initiative to make "unequal" devices, such
as PDAs, PCs, servers, information appliances, and Internet-ready phones,
into peers so that software applications can potentially connect to billions of
other devices through a common infrastructure.
Recognizing one-size doesn't fit all, Endeavors will work with device
manufacturers and software developers to extend this small footprint,
interoperable virtual machine (VM) across a multitude of hardware beyond the
Palm. The Pippy VM is perfectly suited to scale across a variety of
resource-constrained platforms. Pippy will make it easier for companies to
build, port, and market new network-interoperable application programs while
complementing other home automation (HAVi) and open services gateway
initiative (OSGI) standards initiatives.
The Pippy project is a continuation of work previously released as a joint
venture between The Aerospace Corporation and University of California,
Irvine. Computer scientists Jeffery Collins and Michael Gorlick were principals
on the joint venture and are now working for Endeavors Technology to bring
the project to maturation.
The port, named Pippy, formed by appending the Python filename suffix ".PY"
to the acronym PIP (Python In Palm), will reduce the effort of porting Python
applications to small device platforms. Python is a useful and expressive
object-oriented programming language often compared to Perl or Java and is
widely used as a flexible and convenient scripting language. One of the
challenges in porting Java or Python to small platforms is reducing their
footprint to proportions suitable to the platform. Porting Python to the Palm
allows developers to use a programming language and environment that was
previously available only on much larger platforms. The Python Virtual Machine
and libraries can occupy as little as 191 KB of storage memory and will
execute in less than 64 KB of heap space.
"As a happy long-time user of Palm handhelds, I'm excited to see Python
ported to this platform," said Guido van Rossum, author of the Python
programming language and Director of PythonLabs at Digital Creations. "This
port will enable new applications for the Palm platform to be developed in
much less time and for less cost. I'm very glad that Endeavors Technology
decided to make this an open source project." Mr. van Rossum will chair the
9th International Python Conference in Long Beach, CA, on March 5-8
(www.python9.org/).
"Endeavors Technology is a recognized leader in championing open source
development and has recently become one of the top tier companies delivering
open standards peer-to-peer Magi infrastructure software," comments Brian
Morrow, president and COO of Endeavors Technology. "With the development
of the Python port, Endeavors' software continues to bring new capabilities to
devices like Palm handhelds in a spirit similar to our ports of Magi to Win CE
and the Compaq iPAQ."
Endeavors is making this port freely available to the developer community. It
can be downloaded from the official Web site for Pippy at
www.endeavors.com/pippy.html, which is hosted by Endeavors Technology.
More On Magi
Magi peer-to-peer technology enables organizations, groups and individuals to
find, share and act upon information anywhere, at any time, by making the
power of a web server available on any network-capable device. Its open
standards application platform incorporates automated e-process agents that
enable event-driven, multi-way communications between servers, PCs, PDAs,
Internet-ready phones and embedded chips. The Magi suite of tools grew from
research carried out at the University of California Irvine, partly funded by the
Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), and integrates Web
Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) technology. A P2P architecture
white paper and the P2P Business Summary can be accessed at
www.endeavors.com.
About Endeavors Technology
Endeavors Technology is a wholly owned subsidiary of mobile computing and
network infrastructure vendor Tadpole Technology plc (www.tadpole.com),
which has plants and offices in Irvine and Carlsbad (California), and
Cambridge, Edinburgh, Bristol and Reading (UK). For further information on
Endeavors' P2P solutions, call 949-833-2800, email to info@endtech.com, or
visit the company's website.
All trademarks mentioned in this release are the property of their respective
owners.
-- Gregory Alan Bolcer | gbolcer@endtech.com | work: 949.833.2800 Chief Technology Officer | http://www.endtech.com | cell: 714.928.5476 Endeavors Technology, Inc. | efax: 603.994.0516 | wap: 949.278.2805
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