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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.
You can read his goodbye posting to the zope3 list here
http://mail.zope.org/pipermail/zope3-dev/2003-July /007598.html
Guido van Rossum guido@python.org
Wed, 09 Jul 2003 10:24:54 -0400
Dear Zope 3 developers,
Last night at OSCON I announced that I am moving to California. I
have accepted a new job at Elemental Security, a security software
startup in San Mateo. You may have heard of one of the founders, Dan
Farmer, who is the (co-)author of several well-known free security
checking programs: Satan, Titan and The Coroner's Toolkit.
Elemental is a brand new company, and I can't say much yet about the
product, except that it will be aimed at enterprise security and use
Python. I'm very excited about working with Dan on its design and
implementation.
I'm also excited about moving to California, which has long been a
dream of mine. I'm looking forward to getting together with the many
local Python users and developers once I'm settled; right now, my life
and that if my family is total chaos because we're trying to find a
home and move into it by August 1st.
I will still have time for Python (it's in my contract) and I will
continue to lead Python's development. The other PythonLabs folks:
Fred Drake, Jeremy Hylton, Barry Warsaw and Tim Peters, are staying at
Zope, by the way.
But unfortunately, this move pretty much ends my involvement in Zope
3. I've signed a contributors agreement, but with the new job and my
Python work I don't expect to have much time for Zope. So this is
also a goodbye, of sorts. I've enjoyed working with many of you, Zope
3 developers, and I expect we'll run into each other at some future
Python event.
In the mean time, I'm here at OSCON with a busy schedule and limited
access to my email, and the following weeks I will be in transition,
so please be kind if I don't reply immediate when you write me.
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
PS. guido@zope.com no longer works. Please use guido@python.org!
That sound you are hearing is a thousand hackers and script kiddies going "Oh yeah?" in unison.
It hurts when I pee.
We have the Yopy 3700 and now someone's leaving Zope.com. Has Disney been put in charge of naming things lately? Try the new Dopey 2003(C)!
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
"Python has been an important part of Google since the beginning, and remains so as the system grows and evolves. Today dozens of Google engineers use Python, and we're looking for more people with skills in this language." said Peter Norvig, director of search quality at Google, Inc
The obvious reference to Python Web Site will give more information. Python often competes in the same space as perl. But, Python is probably more object oriented than perl. The difference being that python is OO from the ground up as opposed to perl where it was added late. Most of Redhat's installation tools and scripts are written in python. A 3d game a few years ago 'Blade of Darkness' was done with mostly python.
Off the top of my head: :-)
Twisted - a web/chat/anything-you-can-name server
Zope - Web Application/CMS type system
bittorrent - you know about that one
Red Hat uses Python in a lot of their scripts (I believe)
NumPy - used for scientific applications (replacing/augmenting Matlab, fortran, etc)
Karamba - KDE desktop eyecandy, written in C++ and scripted with python
and some really bad stuff I've written for my own amusement.
Off course there's more, but I did say off the top of my head and I don't want to cheat. It's really a nice clean language, that really lends itself to prototyping but still can make great apps.
They'll think I've lost control again and leave it all to evolution. -- Supreme Being, Time Bandits
There are a few more games that use Python... you might have heard of them:
Python is actually simpler than Perl -- it's designed to be so. HOWEVER, Perl is also designed to do many specific things very simply, so when you need to do one of those specific things it's the fastest way to get it done -- assuming, of course, that you already knew Perl could do it :-).
I'm a Python fan, but I doubt Python will ever surpass Perl -- especially not by adding a "more logical parse tree", since it already has a very simple, consistent, and logical parse tree whereas Perl has more of a parse forest. Python and Perl are just too different; they compete in many areas, but their real strengths are far enough apart to keep them both viable in each other's presence.
For info on what projects are being done in Python, see the lists at www.python.org (Success Stories, Python Users, and Python Projects)).
Remarkable language, Python. Lovely plumage!
-Billy
It is a misconception that Python is not strongly typed. It is strongly typed, it is not *statically* typed.
// Java
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:
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
Guido seems to disagree.
Now you might be splitting hairs and saying that "static" means known at compile time and "strong" means type errors are always detected, but in common parlance "strong typing" includes static typing. For the pedants, there's Sebesta:
This criterion is met by very few real-world languages. Most imperative and object-oriented languages include type coercion which contradicts this property. It is interesting to note that future Python development is moving towards still stronger typing -- and, dare I say it -- functional-style constructs.
Of course, the pragmatic thing to do is to understand strong/weak typing not as binary, but as a continuum. In this case, Haskell is more strongly typed than Ada is more strongly typed than Python is more strongly typed than C++ is more strongly typed than C is more strongly typed than FORTRAN. It looks like Python 3.0 will be moving up the chain, however.
FreeBSD - the power to serve.
... is yet another guy named "Guido" wanting everyone to admire his "Python".
SoCal is the land of double entendre and uber-image, Mr. Van Rossum. We don't care about your substance, we want to know about your style. So the question the really needs to be answered now is,
Python: Is It Sexy Enough? Join us on E! when we ask your favorite celebs just what scripting language they use for their daily information processing! We know Pamela Anderson loves Perl, and Carmen Daily is crazy about Java, but what happens when these two sexy stars get their hands on Python? Watch at 11 and find out!
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
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 tried satan for my network security. Cost me my soul, but it's damn good. One kid tried to hack around our proxy to play games at work, and he got engulfed in flame and dragged down to the 3rd layer of hell for the rest of the day! Sure, I have to use a massive water cooling system to keep the firewall (and I mean a wall of fire that I run the ethernet cable through) from melting the other servers, but when the dark lord is watching your back, you don't even have to think twice about security.
I'd like to point out a thread that I found a little while back on Python-Dev about Guido's decision to remove the rexec module (similar to the Java sandbox):
posting 1
and Guido's reply:
posting 2
A little bit further down that thread we find this:
posting 3
Since this last one is particularly telling, I will quote the relevant text for our impatient readers:
I think Guido's rationale for removing all these features will be widely misunderstood. Me channeling him: it is not that he believes that the architectures developed were inherently incapable of providing security. Instead, he feels that no "expert" for these matters has reviewed these architecture for flaws, and that the continuing maintenance of these things isn't going to happen.
If this understanding is correct, then any new approaches will likely suffer from the same fate. Unless somebody steps forward and says: "I am a security expert, and I guarantee that this and that feature is secure (in some documented sense)", then I think he will dislike any changes that mean to provide security.
So this not a matter of engineering but of authority. Somebody must take the blame, and Guido doesn't want to be that someone.
Disclaimer: I love python. However, I am working on a project that depends on rexec, and when I discovered that it was being removed, I was a little annoyed - especially at the reasoning behind the decision.
--WH--
Looking at Guido's Home Page I noticed that his picture shows a clean, healthy looking guy with all his hair.
I hereby cast my vote for Guido VanRossum for Least Ugly Open-Source Project Leader.
Zope is a very cool web application system, and while I don't know of Guido's specific contributions I have to assume that they were great. Still, I'm confidant that Zope will carry on.
For those not familiar with Zope, it is a web application server written entirely in Python. It features an object database that, for example, lets you create an image object, and then call it from other code to automatically build your image tag based on the dimensions and title of the image stored in the object.
It's open source, developed both by the Zope community and the Zope corporation. There are at least two kick ass, open source content management systems built on top of Zope Corp's content management framework that I know of: Plone and Silva. There are a ton of add-on products that are downloadable too.
Zope does have a pretty steep learning curve, if you don't do stuff with "real" web applications (stuff that needs access control lists, user management, templating, etc) it might not be right for you, but it's great for bigger applications. Edd Dumbill talks in a recent blog entry about why Zope is worth learning and DevShed (which runs on Zope) has a good overview.
Guido and Dan Farmer are both smart guys and I'm sure that we can expect good things.
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?