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Guido Goes Google

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the golly-gee dept.

revividus writes "It seems that Python creator Guido van Rossum has received an offer from Google, and accepted it. Here is also some confirmation."

8 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. I love Python, but... by ShatteredDream · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I really do think it has been hampered by having a less rigorously standardized basic class library than Java or .NET. It would be great to see Python get some better documentation tools as well so that it'd be easy to generate documentation on par with the Java and .NET documentation.

    And of course if Google wanted to really screw with both Sun and Microsoft, especially Microsoft, they could create their own cross-platform web and gui toolkits and a free RAD GUI builder a la Visual Studio for Python. If they could create a Python framework on par with Swing or Windows Forms, there'd be quite a bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth in both camps :)

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    1. Re:I love Python, but... by a_karbon_devel_005 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I really do think it has been hampered by having a less rigorously standardized basic class library than Java or .NET. It would be great to see Python get some better documentation tools as well so that it'd be easy to generate documentation on par with the Java and .NET documentation.

      Actually Python's interactive interpreter and class/method documentation strings work very well. Most times it's much nicer to simply be able to DO stuff and look up help at the same time rather than go sifting through some huge morass of automated docs.

      Also, the next time you can do something in Java or .NET that you can't do in Python, let me know.

  2. An assumption by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Everyone seems to assume that his main purpose with Google is to do Python.

    I'm not saying that assumption is not true. It's just that he is a huge talent. If I had a gargantuan project to run, I'd hire him no matter what the language.

    I wonder if the management types have figured out that anyone who can create and run a large successful open source project is a much better manager than the average MBA.

  3. Python v. Perl by Shadow+Wrought · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So... Since Guido got an offer and Larry Wall didn't, does that mean that Google has tipped its hand in the debate?

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  4. Re:His name is Guido? by moro_666 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I dont think that the name Guido will give you any guarantees on the language quality ...

    However, could this be Google's move against Sun and Microsoft ?

    Sun has Java
    Microsoft has C#

    It would be pretty logical that google would like to control something that is comparable to sun and microsoft's bigtime server languages. Python has moderately fast bytecode (google stuff could improve a lot here) and it's got a decent oop model and a threading api. i/o is also usable. i think zope fans can hype their favourite thing in the responding posts too.

    i can't wait for the first version of GPython or Gython !

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  5. This doesn't mean they want to "control" Python by Augusto · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Considering that last year google hired some of the main Java language guys (which still do talks about Java) last year; Joshua Bloch and Neal Gafter). Their background is mainly language/compiler design, my impression was and still is that I wouldn't be surprised if google was just working on their own (new) language. This just confirms this a little bit more ...

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  6. Python vs. compiled Java and C by drgonzo59 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The ability to inline C code in Python rocks.

    I like weave but I am waiting to see what will come out of the PyPy project - the author is the one who wrote Psyco (the JIT compiler for Python).

    Then there is Pyrex where Python can manipulate C data with language extensions, as opposed to weave where C code is inlined into the python code and Python data is manipulated in C.

    It is true that as a scripting language Python is slower than (byte)compiled languages. But it is slower by a constant factor. In other words people would say "Your Python solution is 4x slower than my Java solution!". What this means though is that just by upgrading the hardware that Python runs on, one can reach the speed of execution of the compiled program. In other words Python on an Athlon 64 fx 57 might run faster than java bytecode on a 1Ghz Athlon, or might even run faster than C on a 100Mhz machine (I am just making these numbers up, maybe someone knows of some benchmarks?). The point is that application that required C 15-20 years ago can probably be re-written in Python now.

  7. Re:His name is Guido? by DARKFORCE123 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It would be pretty logical that google would like to control something that is comparable to sun and microsoft's bigtime server languages. Python has moderately fast bytecode (google stuff could improve a lot here) and it's got a decent oop model and a threading api. i/o is also usable. i think zope fans can hype their favourite thing in the responding posts too.

    Microsoft hasn't been asleep either when it comes to Python. They hired the original guy who worked on the Iron Python project http://www.ironpython.com/ which brought Python to .NET.

    The latest updates on the Iron Python is right here
    http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspx ?id=ad7acff7-ab1e-4bcb-99c0-57ac5a3a9742