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Guido van Rossum Leaves Zope.com

Posted by timothy on from the happenstance-meeting dept.

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.

6 of 248 comments (clear)

  1. Good times. by Meat+Blaster · · Score: 3, Interesting
    No doubt he'll have much more time to dedicate to his programming. Python sounds pretty interesting, and I dug through the BitTorrent source a bit to learn more about it, but it also seems pretty complex for what the end result is (as opposed to, say, Perl.) With a bit of work towards a more logical parse tree/DTD, I could see Python easily surpassing Perl as a strongly-typed effective scripting language.

    What other projects are being done in Python?

    1. Re:Good times. by dtolton · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It is a misconception that Python is not strongly typed. It is strongly typed, it is not *statically* typed.

      Python is a stronly typed, dynamically typed, extremely late bound language.

      Double check your facts before calling someone else a dumbass.

      The difference between a dynamically typed language and a statically typed language is this:
      // Java
      int myvar = 1;

      # Python
      myvar = 1

      The difference is that the Java compiler assigns a datatype to the location of myvar, but python assigns a datatype to the value held in myvar.

      It's a subtle difference, and many python newbies think it's not strongly typed, however that is a mistake.

      --

      Doug Tolton

      "The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
  2. Re:possible improvements to python? by vivek7006 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "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.

  3. How instrumental was he to zope? by nurb432 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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 ----
  4. Re:possible improvements to python? by Jason+Earl · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. Re:"Python is 'already quite secure,'" by Pxtl · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.