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Guido van Rossum Leaves Zope.com
VladDrac writes "Guido van Rossum, the author of the Python programming language, announced at OSCON last night that he's leaving zope.com, to work for a new startup called 'Elemental Security', founded by Dan Farmer (known from several security tools such as Satan). Guido leaving Zope.com will also probably mean that he will be no longer involved in Zope3 development, but hopefully he'll have more time to spend on Python development." Guido says that he's excited about his new employer, but that nothing substantial will change about Python as a result of the move. "It's just that I'll be working from the West coast." Python is "already quite secure," he says, and will be the basis of an upcoming security product ("just getting started") from Elemental.
What other projects are being done in Python?
Which unfortunately has nothing to do with the ideas behind Python.
It tends to be much more than "strongly-typed effective scripting language" and if there was some big corporation promoting it as development platform(not even providing support, the guys from the team are doing really good job) , you can bet that Java would had one more serious competitor to worry about...
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
"Perhaps they could do this by borrowing a few tips from perl, which although slower has code that looks much neater."
Perl code looks much neater than Python?
Are u nuts?
One of the strong points of Python language is its clean and intuitive syntax. Perl is a very powerful language, but its strong point is *NOT* neat syntax.
With python there is no question his importance, 'with out Guido there is no python'.. ( thankfully that wont change, that would be a tremendous loss to the community )
What his is level of involvement with zope? Does this spell a slow painful death or just a minor speed bump.. ( I admit I don't follow *new* zope development so I'm just curious )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Could you clarify what you mean? Python is already fully object-oriented (although it doesn't _force_ you to write object-oriented code, but then neither does VB).
And are you joking about Perl? Perl is widely known for having MUCH messier-looking code than Python, but running slightly faster on certain tasks.
-Billy
That's funny. I switched from Perl to Python several years ago and one of the things that I like best about Python is the documentation. Perl's Camel book made a pretty fair reference, but I didn't really like busting out a hard-copy book every time I wanted to look something up. The electronic Perl documentation was pretty nice, but it wasn't quite as comprehensive as the Camel book, and the POD format simply can't compete with Python's documentation. The PDF and HTML formats are nice, but I really like the fact that the Python documentation is available in info format for easy reading in Emacs (complete with a comprehensive index). The indexes in Python's electronic documentation really make a heck of a difference once you start using them. Perl's pile o' man pages simply can't touch Python in this regard (IMHO).
Perl's TIMTOWTDI style means that every time you edit someone else's Perl code you will encounter four or five new Perlisms that you have never seen and that require the Camel book for deciphering. When I was hacking Perl, that meant carring around the Camel book in my laptop bag "just in case." With Python that's no longer a problem.
My guess is that you have gotten use to the structure of Perl's documentation. You know where to find Perl information, and are simply frustrated by the fact that Python requires that you start from scratch with a new set of documentation.
On the other hand, it is possible that we simply have different documentation requirements. What precisely is the problem? "They suck," is not particularly descriptive.
I've tried and I even have friends already working there to use as references. My impression has been that for any kind of fun job there you need a PhD or at least a Masters. Oh well.. we can always dream.
;)
A more interesting project would be to make a search engine that functions as well as Google on a much more modest budget. That's an ongoing game of mine. I figure if I ever succeed maybe they'll hire me finally.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Hell, I'm a Python coder, and I'm already going "oh yeah"
IMHO, it won't be secure until they bring back Bastion and Rexec and get them right this time. Actually, all I want is to be able to remove all the builtins that access the system directly (so Python can't crash your computer, delete files, or otherwise access the filesystem) - but while the language and API documentation is pretty good, the compiler variables are wholly unkown.
As an active Pythonic, and a most interested observer over the last two and a half years, it seesm to me that Guido leaving Zope should not raise any fears whatsoever about the future of Zope. I will explain below. Secondly, Guido's joining the new company is a positive for Python, which I will also explain. When Guido joined Zope a while back, I was very happy because it was good for Python, as it gave Guido a safe and comfortable corporate home and presumably a good living, while still allowing him to devote a lot of time to Python. I viewed it as a great goodwill move by Zope because they would be helping to support the future development of Python at their own expense. While Guido no doubt contributed a lot to Zope's efforts, Zope was a breakthrough and great product long before Guido joined Zope, Zope development team is extensive and capable, and Guido was till devoting a lot of time anyway to Python. Therefore Guido leaving is not a bad thing for Zope. Guido joining Elemental Security is great for Python, because that company will base an important new product on Python, and because it still gives Guido a secure corporate position and salary, and because he may be allowed even more time to develop Python at the expense of a good corporate citizen. This is a win-win situation. I say thanks to Zope, to Elemental Security, and to Guido and team. Ursus Maximus aka Ron Stephens
Writing C code that works ok, and designing a secure sandbox require different skills.
:)
According to my aquiantance with the Python C code, the first skill is there
As for the other, I am not sure.