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Guido Goes Google
revividus writes "It seems that Python creator Guido van Rossum has received an offer from Google, and accepted it. Here is also some confirmation."
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That's great. I'm moving all of my scripts to Python now. If the guy's name is Guido, it's gotta be good!
hello dear sirs my name is jamesh i are india (bihar) can u guide me install red had linux 9?
well, let's hope the dupe has more info than those two lines.
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
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
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.
So... Since Guido got an offer and Larry Wall didn't, does that mean that Google has tipped its hand in the debate?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
The winning offer was the one that had first-line indented paragraphs.
We just love a guy that gets so wrapped up in his work!
We've got penguins, we've got pythons, and we've got a lemur with a minigun...this zoo rocks!
After hearing the report, Ballmer threw a Hissssy fit.
Someone reported a problem with a mouse at Google Central and the recruiter got to work on hiring the python guy.
With a keen eye on competition, Google is just trying to catch up to the number of reptiles employed by Microsoft.
So is google becoming the new Xerox Parc?
In L&S's "Anatomy of a search engine article" they wrote:
In order to scale to hundreds of millions of web pages, Google has a fast distributed crawling system. A single URLserver serves lists of URLs to a number of crawlers (we typically ran about 3). Both the URLserver and the crawlers are implemented in Python
http://www-db.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html
A way of returning a favor, perhaps?
He's back! In programming language form!
By hiring Guido, they are clearly stating that there's only one way to do it. And that way is, of course, with Python.
Yes, I see a Google search for 'perl' now has a transcript of Monty Python's Parrot sketch as the first hit.
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 ...
- sigs are for wimps.
While Perl is still my sentimental favorite, I'm open-minded about programming languages, especially those that are as widely used as Python. I've never been able to really understand Python, though, because of its bizarre syntax. (insert Perl syntax joke here) It's always seemed easier to just do what I need to do in Perl, since I know it so well.
If I'm reasonably proficient in Perl, what would I gain by using Python instead? I'm not trying to troll here, I'm just wondering what I'm missing. If Google uses it internally it must have an advantage over other languages, but I've never not been able to do something in Perl if I really wanted to.
google.py: import Guido
Let me first say that I love Python. I find that dynamic typing makes it easier as a developer and saves time. However, on projects where there are multiple developers and maintainers, is dynamic typing a hindrance? I suppose it comes down to if you document thoroughly what comes in and out of a function/class. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm curious
It might be nice to see some of the Guido python style in Google's future software though.
absolutely.
Often times it's only required to rewrite the most crucial bits of an app. This is fairly straightforward in Python.
A very interesting project that aims to create a faster Python implementation is PyPy, funded by the EU, by google (with Summer of Code) and by a lot of programmers that donate their own time.
Even the Psyco guys say that the future is in PyPy!
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
An offer you can't refuse
... especially when your name is Guido.
Anybody want a peanut?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALF_programming_langu age
AJAX is working for Google fairly well right now, but it's probably not an end-all answer. Javascript is fine for writing small apps, but it's not that great of a language. And even with the distance diminishing between browsers, it's still a pain to write cross-browser code. One of the great accomplishments I've seen of javascript (besides maps.google) is the FCK editor, but even that can be slow, and takes large amounts of memory.
Looking ahead, I suspect Google knows that Javascript will eventually have to dumped. M$ already has an answer, .net. They have their browser, and they can afford not to have to worry about being cross-platform.
In the end, the web browser is not a great for doing things besides browsing the web. On top of that, with EOLAs legal suit against embedded applications, full fledged internet apps seem to be the only way to go. If Google is to survive, they need the tools and framework in order to deploy such apps.
For the curious......
The Zen of Python (by Tim Peters)
Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!
SO Funny! naming a language off a lame british tv show. Damn, that is so cool. I got it, I'll create a new language and call it Alf.
Stupid nerds.
Well... Some Mothers do 'Ave 'Em.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
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.
'Flying chairs', coded by Steve 'monkey' Balmer.
Step 1) Develop several important and useful programming languages.
Step 2) ????
Step 3) Profit!
Unfortunately I think my languages are just too powerful for Google, really. I'm not sure they can handle them. That must be why they haven't called me yet...
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
In the interpreter, do:
>>> import this
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Does Google know something I don't know?
did he update that himself?
I am unique, just like you, and you, and you...
So is my Encyclopaedia Brittanica. With red ink. Take THAT, Wikipedia!
#google strategy
while(stock > 400):
for company in buyoutlist:
company.purchase()
spend_money()
for phd in smart_people_list:
phd.hire()
release_cool_google_tool()
(might be syntax errors in this, I work with so many languages I get confused myself)
`... Python get some better
documentation tools as well so that
it'd be easy to generate documentation
on par with the Java and
documentation.
I make this same mistake everytime I program in python. If you dont read the docs [1] & other peoples code you can write functional code, but with a third to a half bloat penalty. That is of course unless you read lots of example code or the docs...
So check again. Because PyDoc [2] is a tool that displays the documentation, from the source. It is pretty much on par with Java and
Reference
[1] google on `PyDoc the module`, `look for Ka-Ping Yee and PyDoc`:
http://www.google.com/search?q=pydoc
[Accessed Friday, 23 December 2005]
[2] PyDoc, `The python documentation module by Ka-Ping Yee and PyDoc`:
http://del.icio.us/goon/pydoc
[Accessed Friday, 23 December 2005]
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
There's a bit of a difference between giving money and collaboration.
Money is great. I have nothing against money. But treating a university like a farm team is not quite the same as working with a group of researchers and then publicizing the results. The former benefits just Google and the students who are around when the money hasn't been used up yet. The latter benefits Google, the researchers, the students, and (ideally) everyone who comes after them in that particular field.
I'm thinking about the difference between Google's OSS approach (finance development, reap the benefits, hire the best that come out of that process) vs. id Software's approach (when something is no longer generating revenue, release it as OSS). How much of all the amazing stuff that I'm sure goes on behind Google's walls is going to vanish into the NDA void, never to be seen again? How much of that would've been shared with the public if its author had been working at a company that would allow it (vs. one that owns personal projects done on 20% time)?
I'm not trying to bash Google here; I just have some honest concerns about their overall philosophy of absorbing the best and the brightest into a single monoculture. Perfectly happy to be shown that I'm wrong.