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FSF Awards Guido van Rossum For Python

Posted by timothy on from the congratulations dept.

bkuhn writes: "The FSF today bestowed its fourth annual Award for the Advancement of Free Software upon Guido van Rossum . The two other finalists were L. Peter Deutsch and Andrew Tridgell." Developing Python seems like a good reason :)

5 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, but... by code65536 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I still like Perl, better, though. :) I'm not sure I like Python's strict style rules. It's one thing to program in good style, but it's another to have the language force you to. Yes, I'm still resentful over that.

    1. Re:Yes, but... by Zagadka · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It's one thing to program in good style, but it's another to have the language force you to. Yes, I'm still resentful over that.
      If you ever have to maintain code written by others, you'll be glad that Python encouraged them to use good style. (I say "encouraged", because no language really forces good or bad style.) It's a well known fact, even among Perl advocates, that the vast majority of Perl code is indecipherable. It isn't impossible to write fairly clean code in Perl, but the language certainly doesn't encourage it.
    2. Re:Yes, but... by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 3, Insightful
      It's one thing to program in good style, but it's another to have the language force you to. Yes, I'm still resentful over that.
      It's a well known fact, even among Perl advocates, that the vast majority of Perl code is indecipherable. It isn't impossible to write fairly clean code in Perl, but the language certainly doesn't encourage it.

      Please, don't argue Perl vs. Python, it will only start pointless flame wars. Let's agree that it's just a matter of taste. Remember, There's More Than One Way To Do It. I personally prefer Perl, but it's a totally subjective opinion. Perl and Python are more or less equally powerful languages today. But what I'm really looking forward to is Parrot, i.e. the virtual machine for Perl 6 and, I hope, also for Python, Ruby, Tcl and maybe few other good languages. It's a VM and a low-level assembly language for that VM - the language, to which Perl 6 (and hopefully other high-level languages) will be compiled to (as a layer between Perl and the VM bytecode) like C is compiled to machine-specific Assembbler (between C and the machine code). See the examples of Parrot use and read Parrot: Some Assembly Required to see what it is. Also the perl6-internals at perl.org mailing list archives is a good place to start. I'd love to see Perl and Python playing nice together, thanks to Parrot. It'd be really cool if I could write a program in Perl with someone who writes his part in Python, and another one writing in Ruby. I would just use their classes and objects, they would just use mine as well, without worrying about the language of our implementation. Parrot can be the answer here. Would it be the end of language flame wars? I do hope so.

      --

      ~shiny
      WILL HACK FOR $$$

    3. Re:Yes, but... by Trepidity · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The original poster's point still stands though - most Perl code is utter crap and completely unreadable. This is not to say that Perl is inherently worse than Python, and good Perl code is probably comparable to good Python code (maybe better?). But Perl is much more lenient in allowing really really horrible code, which for some reason a lot of people take advantage of.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  2. Re:Great by djmitche · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Guido's management of this enormous, popular project stands in some contrast to Linus' management of Linux, as discussed here on slashdot in January. Guido has held a tight on his project, but has always been careful to justify his positions with solid reasoning based in a few of his own well-known principles of language design.

    Guido's PEPs are a good way for him to relinquish some responsibility for the project while ensuring proper formal scrutiny of and public comment on all language improvements.

    In its relatively short existence, Python has made some impressive gains in popularity and diversity of uses (from embedded systems to "supercomputers" and from 10-second syadmin hacks to full-scale applications). Congratulations, Guido.