Slashdot Mirror
Python Development Team Moves to BeOpen.Com
Clyde Zellers writes: "The Python development team's leader, Guido Van Rossum, has just announced in an open letter that he is moving with his team to the Open Source startup, BeOpen.com. Guido and his team will now be devoting their full energies to Python developement and continuing with such innovative projects as Python 3000.
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Guido and his team will now be devoting their full energies to Python developement and continuing with such innovative projects as Python 3000
Looks like a Microsoft press statement to me. Keep your eye on these Python folks.
What do you know about all the various open source portals? Does anyone have experience with SourceForge, BeOpen, Asynchrony, et al? Can you give any objective comparison between two or more of them?
Do OSS portals make any money, and if so, how?
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E2 IN2 IE?
but seriously, if Guido and his merry band of coders had put their blood sweat and tears into helping Perl just imagine where we would be today.
Whitespace sensitive PERL! Hooray!
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Think of programming languages as a form of expression. Some languages make it easier to express certain types of ideas than others. I'm sure everyone here has heard of the "30 different words for snow" in eskimo. Russian has similar motifs for concepts like oppression, I believe.
Programming languages work like that too. Perl and Python are opposite sides of the same coin. The perl motto is "There's more than one way to do it." I don't know if Python has a motto, but it should be "There's a best way of doing it." Perl is designed for quickly digging in and doing work. Python is designed for "higher", more structured design. Why else do you think Python forces indentation? It's certainly not for Guido's comfort.
In other words, Perl is like vernacular english and Python is like high english. Both are useful in different ways and different contexts for expressing different ideas.
-Ted
Don't BeSilly
Python 3000 is the vaporware future version of Python in which Guido will not feel constrained to preserve backward compatibility. In other words, it's Guido's last chance to fix the language. Currently development is supposed to start around 2002, after Python 1.6, 1.7, and maybe even 1.8 release. (It was originally called Python 2.0, then renamed as sort of an MST3K reference.)
I'm not bashing Perl, but I really think it's an ego trip for these guys. Lets put forth our efforts into Python and leave this perl nonsense alone.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
It seems to be fairly common for authors of well-known utilities to either form their own start-ups or be absorbed into existing ones. If the ideology of OSS is to develop code "for the good of humanity," I am more than a little curious why Slashdot's absorbtion into Andover.net, L0pht's absorbtion into @stake, and now Python's absorbtion into BeFree has not spawned criticism. Since I view myself as somewhat of an outsider in relation to OSS, I see it as the natural evolution of OSS into the marketplace at large. In my mind, it legitimizes OSS more than it reflects on the founders' desire for material possessions.
How do you feel about OSS companies becoming part of for-profit ventures?
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
In other words, it's Guido's last chance to fix the language.
Don't you mean his first chance?
Anyway I don't agree; Python isn't broken. You can do a lot in a few lines. And after that you can still read it and know what it does.
I am a huge fan of Perl, and have used it successfully for years, but I honestly hope that Python continues to gain mindshare.
Let's face it, Perl is not a very readable language. TMTOWTDI basically guarantees that I am going to do something differently than my buddy in the next cubicle, and if you have ever tried to extend stuff from CPAN it becomes apparent there are a LOT more than one ways to do it.
Python isn't perfect either, but it is a lot easier to read. And when combined with wxWindows you have a easy way to create cross-platform (well Windows and *nix anyway) GUIs. Yes, I know, Perl has Perl/Tk, and no I don't think that counts :).
Besides, how cool it is to have a language where it is encouraged to put excerpts from Monty Python scripts in the comments? Very cool in my opinion.
In short I think that the Perl community should stop wasting their time on Perl and start working on Python instead :). Barring that, I think that we should all just get along and use whatever tools we like best. In the Free software community there is bound to be some overlap (just like in the commercial software community). The good news is that the success of Python does not necessarily mean that Perl will wither and die. It simply means the Perl hackers will have to raise the bar.
That's certainly a valid concern, but the nature of an open source project will undoubtedly keep the language on track. If, as you suggest, it starts moving down an unpopular path, anyone can fork the language ("Monty 1.0!") into something people prefer to use. I doubt such a drastic step will ever be necessary, but we have the power to take it if we need to.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Call me a newbie/dork/lamer/whatever, but the sound of a programming language named after a potentially deadly snake is appealing to me.
Actually, Guido named Python after Monty Python's Flying Circus, which is infinitely cooler than naming it after a snake. You would know that if you weren't such a newbie/dork/lamer. (Just kidding!) Seriously, though, check out the language -- it rocks balls. It's like Perl without all that !@#$!@% shit.
Stupid question time: anybody know what Python 3000 is?
Python 3000 is the next major version of Python (although at least one more minor version is going to be released). It will be backwards incompatible and clear up many of the outstanding warts in Python's design. At this point it's not much more than a twinkle in Guido's eye.
-DA
Does anybody realize just how dated this 'Python 3000' stuff is going to sound in a thousand years' time?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Interesting.
:)
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A couple of pretty big sites use Python big time.
Here are some:
www.google.com
www.egroups.com
Ultraseek (Infoseek's search engine for sale) is also written in Python.
Sounds big to me
Simpy
Poignantly, it is now time for the Penguin on your telly to explode...
As for the usefulness, a semi-consistant style makes reading other peoples' code easier and it means less characters onscreen (such as { and }) for marking the starts and stops of blocks - leaving more room for code.
It's not for everyone, I'll admit, but it didn't take me long before I'd forgotten about the indentation rules entirely. Now I don't even think about them unless someone reminds me.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Okay, this is a troll and a half, but my Python-zealotry badge refuses to let me ignore the gauntlet:
You just answered your own question. /You/ have your own consistent, easy-to-follow way. I have my own consistent, easy to follow way. My friend has his own consistant, obfuscated perl-hacker-on-meth way. Problem is, when one of us looks at another's code, we have to keep dealing with your new way.
Python makes it a requisite to perform indenting. The sensitivity is something that you can get over, in the course of a few minutes, while you learn the language.
If you /still/ can't handle it, there is a preprocessor available, written in Python, that allows you to use BEGIN .. END style syntax. Just don't expect any Python programmers to respect your silly coding style. ;)
Weapons of Mass Analysis
I learned Perl a while ago, and love it in general. Not having to beat a language into submission in order to express my ideas is usually a good thing.
...
I then became interested in learning Python (after deciding that Perl didn't provide the bondage-and-discipline OO style that I want to use), and actually installed it on my Win98 system, only to discover that the included installation of Tk was somehow installed into the wrong place (re-install didn't help), and that as a result, IDLE wouldn't run.
I then went back, and took at look at the Python pages, only to discover Python 3000. While it really is a Good Thing(tm) that they're openly stating that there will be incompatibilities with current Python, it also does scare me away from learning the language somewhat
Granted, many things were deprecated between say, Perl 1 and Perl 5, and probably more things will be changed/deprecated in the future, but the only relatively recent surge of interest and thus use of Python seems to make the language "younger" (though chronologically Python's the same age as Perl, no?) and thus more subject to radical changes.
Anyone care to clue me in on how much Python 3000 might change things? I know that it'll be a total redesign, and that probably even the design stage isn't exactly completely finished at this point, but I'm just wondering how much Python I would have to re-learn when Python3k comes out, if I learn Python 1.5x or 1.6 now?
Tei'ehm Teuw,
Thank you for demonstrating your lack of synaptic activity to the group. BeOpen.com is not owned by AboveNet Communications, Inc., whom you paint as the next Evil Empire. BeOpen simply hosts servers with AboveNet, which is how I assume you came about this ridiculous and erroneous claim. In the future, I would encourage you to check your facts before emerging as offensively ignorant.
To set the record straight, BeOpen.com is a privately held company based in Santa Clara, CA. It is also worth noting that Red Hat's installer is based on Python, and BeOpen would hardly be served by making Python "exclusive", as you claim might be the case. I can personally assure you that any future releases of the Python software will be backed by our full and long-time commitment to the Open Source community.
Thanks.
Domenic R. Merenda
Director of Strategic Business Development
BeOpen.com
Hmmmm .... I think I see the glimmerings of BeOpen's business model. Recall that in the early days of TV broadcasting, they had to create shows to flog the TV sets. Everyone is predicting the exponential explosion of data to replace voice as the main growth driver of telecommunications. Currently the biggest component of internet usage is mail and web browsing. But *text* is rather limited in human bandwidth requirements (eye can only read so fast) so I suspect a desire for more bandwidth hungry apps that operates on global scale. E-commerce is transaction oriented (bursty) so the only other possible market is education, exporting the US ivy league brand-names to India/China (potentially > 2 billion customers) which is where Python and the "Computer Programming for Everyone" project probably comes in to help create rich media interaction.
I think of it as people building the pipes and storage tanks for a virtual "hub and spoke" network in the expectation that the content will flow once some heavy pumping is initiated. Distributed development and professional community fostering is only the start.
LL
IMO, Python's white-space sensitivity is a good idea because it takes "you" and "me" out of the equation.
It's great that "you" have your own "consistent, easy to follow" code format - which is easy to follow for, well, YOU. But what if that format isn't easy to follow for "me" or "the next guy"? (see: much existing C and Perl code for examples)
By taking code formatting, braces, and other religious formatting arguments out of the loop, Python code is pretty much readable by any Python programmer.
Imagine if programming languages required writing and saving the code in Word/WordPerfect or some other proprietary format; you could say that "your" file format was best, but I couldn't necessarily read it. Fortunately, code is normally saved as ASCII text so I can read it in emacs or vi and not care how you wrote it. I look at Python's "format enforced/religiously neutral" system as providing similar benefits.
paul
Silly Rabbit, sigs are for kids.
Also look at www.alice.org for a very cool use of Python.
___
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
IIRC, Ultraseek isn't actually written in python, it's got python embedded for use as a configuration language.
Thawte used python extensively in their site; and I think Yahoo's webmail is python based, too.
I hope you are correct that the open source efforts and ethics will continue, but follow the money, he may be on to something.
Unlike certain whitespace-sensitive syntaxes (Makefiles), python interprets tabs as being equivalent to 8 spaces, which is how most editors (in default configuration) show them. If the lines look lined up, they are lined up.
True, you can configure any decent editor to show tabs as 4, 2, 12, or seventeen spaces. Personally, I like an indentation level of four spaces. With vim this means I set softtabstop=4. Tabs still show up as 8 spaces (as G--d- intended), but each time I whack the tab key I get four spaces.
I have been watching the python mailing list (gated from comp.lang.python) for a while and code in Python professionally. I have never seen anybody come to the newsgroup with a problem in their code caused by invisible indentation problems, and have never seen it in the code I work with,
I have seen several flame wars in this issue, but have yet to see any evidence that it is a problem in practice.
The principle is that, whenver possible, computers should be made to do what's easiest for the person, and not vice-versa - and the indentation is easiest for the person to read. The layout manifests the programmer's intended structuring - for the programmer and and the computer.
As for not being able to do what you want - all python imposes is that separate lines at the same block level must have the same indentation, and increasing levels have greater indentation w.r.t. their containing blocks. (The amount of indentation is up to you, and can vary.) I would be surprised if this is contrary to the vast majority of seasoned programmers' personal styles. The only thing you have to lose is your braces (and you can use parens to force groups in expresions, besides) and semicolons (and you *can* use the semicolons, but why?).
Voila.
everything leaks
`individual' developers homegrown `consistent, easy-to-follow' layout;
There are bad ways to do whitespace dependent layout, and there are
good ways. Python is the latter, but experience with the former have
led to ingrained prejudices. Without whitespace, Python would start
to look like Scheme or XML.
What's broken in the language?
I suggest you go to http://www.beopen.com/company/investors.html, where you will find that 4 of 7 investors of Beopen.com are from AboveNet Communications, and one of the others is formerly with AboveNet. Whether or not you're owned by them, or that they are the Evil Empire, I couldn't say. But having 4 of 7 investors (or 5 of 7, depending on your count) certainly indicates they have a say in your company.
What I hope to see for Python 3000 is mostly cleanups that weren't possible in earlier versions because of backwards incompatibility: a simpler, leaner implementation with a "nicer" interface to C++ code, lexical scoping rules, and a simple full garbage collector in place of reference counting. Moving the NumPy numerical array type into the core would also help with creating numerical extensions. But that's largely all I would like to see in the next major release of Python.
I'm not sure that the transition to BeOpen.com of the development effort is altogether a good thing. If this results in extra resources and they are focussed on enhancing Python, Python may become too complex and featureful; a number of other languages that started out like Python have gone down that road and become marginalized. Or Python may simply end up being a side-line for some other business, just like what seems to have happened with Scriptics and Tcl.
Python is Guido's baby, and it's his to decide where to take it. But I hope he'll keep these kinds of concerns in mind.
Thank you first off for your candid and straightforward reply.
The information I posted was taken directly from your corporate web site under the investors section, where it outlines your primary investors. Over three quarters are executives of AboveNet communications which does happened to be a subsidiary of Metromedia.
I did not mean to imply that BeOpen.com is going to be , as you put it, "The next Evil Empire". After re-reading my initial post I can see how it could read that way and I apologize if I have insulted you or any other BeOpen associate. I for one have been a Python supporter for a long time and have appreciated all Python has done for the Open Source community.
That said, The statement that BeOpen simply hosts servers with AboveNet implies that is the extent of the BeOpen/AboveNet relationship, which I find to be misleading and also false. From public filings from the creation of BeOpen, it is quite apparent that the effort is VC based however subsidised by many of the exec's at AboveNet.
Now if you or the other associates of BeOpen are not aware of this, I feel for you in the fact that your owners and management have kept this from you.
My initial post was an attempt to illustrate that as in cases past, when big money VC's and investors "Partner", "Merge with", "Aquire", etc. Open Source firms, the firms have a huge fight when trying to hold on to the ideals and ethics of open source. My post was trying to outline my fear that this may happen to Python, now PythonLabs. It was not intended to be a flame targeted at Python or any of it's associates, only a thought that big money has a history of getting what it wants, regardless of what gets in its way. In this case Open Source ideals.
In closing I would like to thank you for your honest reply and also thank you for your commitment to the open source community for any future releases of the Python software.
Regards,
ttm
Would some moderator with half a brain please moderate this back up? This is not flame bait. It's a comment about a feature of the language.
(If you want a flame, though, how about this? Why the fuck does the lameness filter kick in when I use "Flamebait???" for the subject??? Apparently two question marks is ok, but three is lame. Who the fuck came up with such a lame lameness filter???)
/peter
As for the issue of cramping your style, most style issues boil down to where you put brackets, which is of course a non-issue in python. If you really are consistent, I doubt you'll hate it.
In practice, being forced to indent properly isn't more difficult than being forced to close those brackets. It's a nice clean language, partly because of the whitespace thing.
Of course, I could go on all day, but the only way you will be convinced is if you really gie it a shot. But I came into it like you -- I was sceptical and a big perl fan. I'm still a big perl fan, but python is also pretty cool.
However I don't find any reference to Exodus on any Web based search in relation to BeOpen or to AboveNet. Exodus was founded by a couple of former IBM execs and from what I can find out in th short time since the stroy posted, they appear to be competitors (Exodus and AboveNet) not partners.
As for AboveNet owning BeOpen, I beleive you are correct in your statement, but the controlling interest is held by AboveNet execs. That would be about as close to ownership as you could get. IMO.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
What makes BeOpen superior to SourceForge? Easy. BeOpen is not affiliated with VA Linux Systems, of which we've already established has a near monopoly on resources when it comes to the Linux community. Looking past the "VA Linux Systems will screw you and your project raw if you let them" argument, the simple act of merely housing everything under one umbrella is dangerous. If VA Linux Systems goes straight into the crapper (seen their stock performance lately?) like the vast majority of other
Diversity is a good thing for Linux. One company owning and running it all is not.
My $0.02,
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
BeOpen.com would like to thank the Slashdot community for generating such volume of conversation on the Python issue. Because some rumors have been flying around today, we would like to let the community know a little more about BeOpen.com as a company, as well as answers some of the questions that have been raised.
BeOpen.com is a venture-backed Silicon Valley start-up based in Santa Clara, CA. We are an application publishing company fully committed to Open Source and the community surrounding it.
We did, in fact, receive funding from individuals who were the founders and deal makers behind Exodus Communications and AboveNet. We are not, however, "owned" by AboveNet. We feel that having access to these successful and highly intelligent business professionals is an asset to our company.
BeOpen.com has acquired LinuxDEV.net, Geeks404.com, and GNULinux.com, providing content and community around these sites. We have also interviewed a number of Open Source luminaries on the BeOpen.com site, including Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, Jordan Hubbard of FreeBSD, Inc., Matthias Kalle Dalheimer of the KDE Project, and Beau Vrolyk of SGI. As well, we have produced a number of documents relating to Linux and its usage, which inform and aid the community as a whole.
BeOpen.com has also been in contact with Richard Stallman concerning an equipment donation to the Free Software Foundation, one of our many community outreach programs.
The Core Python development team has joined BeOpen.com. We have signed an agreement with Guido and his team stating that we will always release our Python products as Open Source, ensuring that the community's rights are protected.
We continue to employ members of the community to produce content and develop software. We also support several projects on SourceForge, paying the salaries of the developers in charge of these endeavors.
We hope the community will recognize through our actions the strong commitment to giving back and promoting the Open Source and Linux movements that BeOpen.com has displayed and will continue to foster.
Thank you all for your interest in BeOpen.com and in Python. We look forward to working closely with the community to promote Open Source and Linux.
Domenic R. Merenda
Director of Strategic Business Development
BeOpen.com
Supporting Unicode shouldn't be that big a deal, though there are still things to argue over, and it's slated for 1.6. The current interface is documented in this Unicode proposal; what's described there is mostly already implemented in the 1.6 alpha releases and CVS tree. Outstanding issues still remain: 1) the default encoding to use, 2) a Unicode-aware regex engine (partially there in 1.6a2, with a new version about to hit the CVS tree) and 3) declaring an encoding for Python source files (probably going to be left to 1.7). If you want to see good Unicode support in 1.6, I'd recommend compiling the CVS tree, trying it out on your application, and complaining loudly if you find shortcomings. Experience with an actual application is worth dozens of vague speculations.
It is contraray to mine. I use an extra half-indent to indicate a continued line. Even in languages that require the backslash on the end of the last line. It is a pretty rare quirk, but I have seen other use it, and more importantly, it helps me a great deal when I look over code (as for avoiding long lines, that's hard with long typenames, and C/C++ functions decl syntax, esp. with C++'s constructor init-list syntax as well).
I have also seen a lot of code that uses "extra" spaces to line up parts of similar lines to emphisize similarity. Sometimes those spaces are before the first non-white space. This isn't something I do (I like moving the common parts into local const variables when I can, or macros, or I line them up but only after the first non-whitespace), so I won't miss it.
That said I don't hate Python. I dislike one feature. I can't think of a single language I use that doesn't have at least one feature I don't dislike. Sometimes even as strongly as Python preventing me from throwing in a bit of extra indentation where I think I need it.
I don't use it because I have plenty of mid-performance psudo-embedable languages in my toolbox allready (Perl, Tcl, sh). I have little need for another. Hell I have little enough need for the three I know! Mostly I'm stuck doing stuff that really needs to be in C (part of an existing C program -- like a device driver), or C++ (new program, but expected to be CPU bound, and pushed hard). A pity I can't get my boss to let me try Eifel for some production system.
Microsoft once released a Basic interpreter for Apple II. It was called Applesoft (aka FPBasic), and all 10 kilobytes of it were burned into the ROM of all Apple II Plus and later Apple II computers. You could do things like
and the line editor would translate it intoWill I retire or break 10K?
Translation: They own our asses right back to the perineum, and have options on our various penises, testicles and women's parts, too.
John Montoya, going to business school and law school so you don't have to.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Fix that indent-based block structure for fuck's sake. The only reason they do it is because it's easier to newbies. Fsck newbies! Well ok not necessarily, but they could at least offer an alternative for us ancient Perl programmers.
PYTHON 3000
AUTO SECURITY SYSTEMS
The Newest Technology
In Vehicle Security
giggle.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Bowie, you just don't seem to get it, at all. There are a -ton- of sites that we have nothing to do with, including LinuxToday, BeOpen, advogato, Kuro5hin and the rest. A near monopoly means that we could prevent other sites from even happening, which, clearly, we could not do. Also, for it to a be a monopoly we would have to have a service that people were forced to use. You are welcome to not use any of the aggregate web sites.
For those of you who don't know, Bowie thinks VA screwed him and "stole" his idea in creating sourceforge and has been whining like a child ever since. In fact VA had been doing hosting for years and sourceforge was a logical extension to that. Just click around on slashdot to learn about poags issues with VA.
I'll agree with you that diversity is a good thing, though, and I for one am glad BeOpen is around.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Thank you, but I dont need you of all people telling the rest of the community what I "think" of your company Mr. DiBona. If you're going to do that, at least get your shit straight. It's what I know about your company (from working with you and others for nearly two years) not what I think.
You also failed to point out that you are an employee of VA Linux Systems. More importantly, you're their mouthpiece. "Linux Community Evangelist", isn't it? Tsk tsk.. Its only when people look at your bio that they see you're an employee of the company.
In the meantime, feel free to pull your head out of your ass anytime you feel up to it, Chris. From the looks of it, it sounds like it may take a while to dislodge. I'm not afraid of people hearing what I've had to say about your company (and what I'll continue to say) because all of it is basically true. Why should I be afraid?
On that note, here you go, kids..Knock yourself out:
A list of everything I've written on Slashdot in the past 9 months or so.
Enjoy!
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
I'm not afraid of people hearing what you have to say at all, I mean, anyone with half a brain can read what you have to say and dismiss it. My -job- is to point out that you are wrong, so that those who are seeing your childish rants for the first time understand that and give us the fair chance that we deserve.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
(hey, that's how I sign -every- post!)
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Zope is usually run as a long-running process that's accessed through either Persistent CGI or FastCGI (though the FastCGI was still unstable when I tried it). A FastCGI module is also available if you just want to run regular CGI scripts a bit faster, and mod_python is available as an Apache module.
I've followed Bowie's ranting against VA for a while, and frankly, it reeks of childish pique. Get on with your life Bowie. If you still want to run something like SourceForge, think of a different name, and write some code. You're just not convincing anyone of anything except that you're a petulant child.
--
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
Chris
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.