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GOALS FOR PIRATE AND DUTCHMAN
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1. Full Python Compatibility 

   Implement a complete and up to date versions of python
   and its standard library that runs on the parrot virtual
   machine.

   Therefore, we will do one or more of:

      - expand the code generator to handle all features
        of python (imports, decorators, generator comprehensions,
        eval/exec, etc)

      - reimplement the python api for the parrot virtual
        machine, so that we can simply recompile the python
        standard library (and other modules like numeric
        and pygame). [this also addresses goal 4]

      - manually port the python standard library to parrot

2. Significant Speed Improvement

   Parrot has numerous features that should allow python
   to run much faster (fore example, native types and the
   register machine architecture) than cPython.

   Therefore, we will do one or more of:

      - take advantage of PyPy's type inference engine so
        that scripts can use parrot native types where
        appropriate (and as PyPy evolves)

      - set up facilities for manual type annotations
        (a "typesheet" compiler)

      - hand-code the most commonly used sections of the
        standard library (especially the builtin module)
        as optimized PMC's.


3. Language Enhancements

   Parrot's architecture makes it easy to implement
   tail calls and serializable continuations, and possibly
   other features that the python community have asked
   for but which are hard to implement on the existing
   virtual machine.

   Therefore we will:

      - experiment with ways to expose these features
        through extended python syntax and/or libraries

4. Language Interop

   Parrot was conceived as a common platform for many
   languages, and so a full implementation of python on
   parrot should allow python programmers to easily take
   advantage of code written in other languages, and allow
   users of those other languages to take advantage of
   libraries written in python.

   Therefore, we will do one or more of the following:

      - restructure pirate so that its parts can be easily
        reused in other compilers, and support other developers
        in their efforts to create new parrot compilers.

      - reimplement the python api for the parrot virtual
        machine, so that we can simply recompile the python
        standard library (and other modules like numeric
        and pygame). [this also addresses goal 1]

      - experiment with ways to overcome syntax issues
        between languages (for example, scheme and ruby
        both allow you to create function names with characters
        that python doesn't recognize, whereas perl has
        separate namespaces for hashes, arrays, scalars
        and functions)