Brian and I spent some time pairing on the WebDAV stuff today. Actually, Brian did all the work. I helped dig into how the remote repository stuff works (I was learning it at the same time) but got pulled off into various side conversations and IRC's. Brian was able to get a Python DAV library to work for get/put -- said library needs a bit more work to be truly usable. Then we started trying to fit the DAV stuff into the remote repository stuff. The remote repository works via an RPC like model. When we finally realized this we decided to take a step back, since implementing it using WebDAV would be almost like doing SOAP. WebDAV doesn't have a way to simulate the various repository calls, so you'd be reduced to using as a transport for procedure calls, which effectively reduces to being SOAP. So while it could be done (just to prove that it could be done), I think we're going try to look at better ways of using WebDAV for accessing the repository.

Jeffrey Harris arrived today to join Roger and Phil on the dump/restore stuff. This trio was able to get basic dump working, so they'll be looking at restore next, but restore is more challenging that dump, so we'll see where it goes from here.

Brian's been giving me quite a bit of honest but painful feedback, which is really good. I'd much rather get this kind of feedback early and be able to address it as early as possible. This was one of the goals for the sprint, so we're succeeding there even if it's slower going on the code. A short feedback loop for both positive and negative feedback is an important feature of open source development, and if you want to be successful, you need to be open to all kinds of feedback. Tomorrow is the last day of the sprints, so we'll be trying to wrap up the code projects and save some time to get more feedback.

On the dining/meeting front, We went to lunch as a sprint, and one of the topics that we talked about was the potential of restructuring the scientific journal publishing process using the Internet. I also spent some time talking with Jacob Hellen and Armin Rigo about the current state of PyPy. They appear to be making good progress towards a full Python interepreter and have started a parallel optimization effort. Jacob also described A.B. Strakt's Python product which uses a notification based query mechanism (similar to what we want to do for Chandler) to update the user interface. Brian, Jeffrey and I went to dinner with Jacob, Armin, and Laura Creighton (also of Strakt and PyPy). We talked about how we got started with Python, Emacs vs VI (in a very friendly manner), Python IDE's, life in Sweden, and a whole bunch of other topics. And Laura made it very clear that we were invited to EuroPython in June. It sounds like they are doing a really good job of organizing it and are trying to make it affordable for people to come from the States. She also seemed to think that there would be a lot of European interest in Chandler.