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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."

35 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. that's it? by nazsco · · Score: 5, Funny

    well, let's hope the dupe has more info than those two lines.

    1. Re:that's it? by BLueSS · · Score: 4, Funny

      More than two lines? Why? That might actually make it an article!

    2. Re:that's it? by revividus · · Score: 5, Funny
      Yeah, I know. I had nothing to add, sorry. ;-)

      Did you want me to say that Google was a search engine and that Python was a programming language?

      --

      philcrissman.com.

    3. Re:that's it? by anaesthetica · · Score: 5, Funny
      Next time try throwing in some over-the-top, sensationalized, flamebait speculation. More points if it's a complete non-sequitur. For example:

      "It seems that Python creator Guido van Rossum has received an offer from Google, and accepted it. Here is also some confirmation. Does this finally confirm that vi is better than emacs?"

      or

      "It seems that Python creator Guido van Rossum has received an offer from Google, and accepted it. Here is also some confirmation. Is this move calculated to counter Apple's move to Intel?"

      See? It's not so hard.

      --
      The Rise and Fall of Online Community
    4. Re:that's it? by zaguar · · Score: 3, Funny
      And to cap it off, add a slight disclaimer that 'you don't want to start a flamewar'.

      It seems that Python creator Guido van Rossum has received an offer from Google, and accepted it. Here is also some confirmation. Not to flame the flames, but does this unexpected move confirm that PostgreSQL is slipping behind MySQL in the conformance to SQL Standards?

      or

      It seems that Python creator Guido van Rossum has received an offer from Google, and accepted it. Here is also some confirmation. Would he have been hired if he was a C++ programmer? Not to restart the flamewar, but doesn't this prove that C++ and Java are toy languages compared to python?

      --
      "Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
    5. Re:that's it? by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, "not to start a flamewar" is old-school. These days, the tactic is to say something that you can be reasonably sure will get modded up to +5, but trying to make yourself look rebellious and daring by prefixing it with, "I know I'll get modded down for this, but ..."

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  2. 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 :)

    --
    Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
    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. Re:I love Python, but... by YA_Python_dev · · Score: 4, Informative

      WxWidgets?

      Good point. I think that Python + wxPython + wxGlade is a very powerful combination for clean, fast and maintainable GUI development.

      If you do GUIs I suggest to try these tools: they are simple and powerful (wxPython even contains additional classes that are not present in wxWidgets).

      --
      There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
    3. Re:I love Python, but... by tomservo291 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Python is self documenting. You should be documenting it as you go along. Everything in python is an object, and every object has a doc string, therefore EVERYTHING in python has documentation built into it. Variables, functions, classes, anything and everything.

  3. 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.

    1. Re:An assumption by linuxmop · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is a well-founded assumption. Much of Google's internal development is done in Python. Thus, it is important that Python development continue quickly and continue in a direction that benefits Google. They cannot risk that Guido find himself unable to afford to continue as Python project leader.

      No, they are most certainly hiring Guido to continue Python development. It would be a disaster for Python, and thus for Google, if they diverted his talent toward some random Google project.

    2. Re:An assumption by gstein · · Score: 3, Informative

      Oh, quite true. At Google, we use Python, Java, and C++ for all of our work. Python is critical to our development and infrastructure.

      I gave a keynote at PyCon last year about the importance of Python at Google. Some people transcribed the talk. You should be able to find it via Google. (heh!)

    3. Re:An assumption by gstein · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ha! Guido would quit in a heartbeat if you tried to make him manage people. That just isn't where he's at. He's absolutely brilliant and loves to write excellent code. Great. We're gonna let him do just that :-)

      In any case: yeah, we hired him because we want him to work on Python itself. And as John says later in this thread -- about half his time.

  4. 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?

    --
    If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
    1. Re:Python v. Perl by gtrubetskoy · · Score: 3, Informative
      So... Since Guido got an offer and Larry Wall didn't, does that mean that Google has tipped its hand in the debate?

      Google's always been pretty open about heavy Python use. There is fairly interesting presentation by Greg Stein about Python at Goole here (audio only).

  5. 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 !

    --

    I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
  6. One Liners... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  7. Becoming the new Xerox Parc by suso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So is google becoming the new Xerox Parc?

    1. Re:Becoming the new Xerox Parc by Tumbleweed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Considering they're actually bringing out products that people USE, I'd say not. :)

  8. No, no, no, no! by MrHanky · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  9. 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 ...

    --

    - sigs are for wimps.
    1. Re:This doesn't mean they want to "control" Python by strstrep · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hasn't Perl already done 80-90% of that for years?

  10. Better article headline: by killmenow · · Score: 5, Funny

    google.py: import Guido

  11. Re:His name is Guido? by NewbieProgrammerMan · · Score: 4, Informative
    Once an external project is prototyped and "proof of concept"ed they move to a faster language.
    Based on what I've heard from people that work there, this is not always the case (I assume you're talking about re-writing entire applications in "something faster" after the Python prototype proves the concept). Sometimes it's not necessary to optimize the shit out of everything; to do so would be a waste of resources. One of the nice things about Python is that you can re-implement hotspots in other languages (such as C or C++) without having to rewrite the whole application (yes, I know you can do that sort of thing in other languages, too).
    --
    [b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
  12. Re:Semi-Off-Topic Python vs. Perl discussion by gorzek · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can't speak for anyone else, but I did make the leap from perl to Python, and have no regrets.

    I still use perl for quick-and-dirty text-processing and so forth, but Python is excellent for creating scripts you want to be able to maintain later. The syntax is sparse (compared to most other languages), so there isn't as much code to maintain. I found most of my favorite perl features were also represented (foreach, regular expressions, etc.)

    People who've never spent much time with Python will gripe about the whitespace. It was never an issue for me, and I've never had problems with it.

    If you plan to do any significant object-oriented programming, Python is very good for that. For procedural programs, the only edge it has over perl is readability, due to the concise syntax.

    One thing to keep in mind with Python, however, is that it does NOT convert between numbers and strings automatically, while perl does. It's no big deal to cast a number as a str() or cast a string as int(), but if you don't know about it beforehand, it will get you.

    From what I understand, Python is also very nice for metaprogramming, but I've never used it for that. I have used it for quick command-line utilities, GUI apps (with wxPython), and game programming. The object-oriented features are really why I prefer it over perl. They are intuitive, and you have a lot of power over how the objects behave in various circumstances.

    If you have any C# experience, I've found you can port C# code to Python with only minor (mostly cosmetic) changes. (This obviously excludes using libraries written for C#, though--I was referring to the syntax of the code itself as being easily ported.)

    Sorry if this explanation wasn't technical enough. I was just trying to lay out the general reasons I found a move from perl to Python relatively painless.

    --
    Check out my world simulator thingy.
  13. PyPy: a Python implementation written in Python by YA_Python_dev · · Score: 4, Informative

    Python has moderately fast bytecode (google stuff could improve a lot here)

    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__()
  14. Re:an offer from Google by FrankDrebin · · Score: 3, Funny

    An offer you can't refuse

    ... especially when your name is Guido.

    --
    Anybody want a peanut?
  15. You are late by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALF_programming_langu age

  16. 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.

  17. New Windows screen saver by Skiron · · Score: 5, Funny

    'Flying chairs', coded by Steve 'monkey' Balmer.

  18. My plan to get hired by Google: by BigZaphod · · Score: 3, Funny

    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
  19. Easter Egg by Poromenos1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    In the interpreter, do:

    >>> import this

    --
    Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
  20. 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

  21. Re:His name is Guido? by julesh · · Score: 3, Informative

    Python has moderately fast bytecode (google stuff could improve a lot here) and it's got a decent oop model and a threading api.

    Python's biggest problem from a performance perspective is that the language effectively guarantees operations on several internal objects (e.g. lists, dictionaries, etc) are atomic (from a multithreading point of view). This means that some kind of lock must be held when working with such objects. Because this is how most Python programs spend most of their time, Python usually just has a global lock for all such objects that threads hold whenever they aren't blocked. This means that multithreaded Python apps do not usually benefit from having multiprocessing systems. The obvious alternative (per-object locks acquired when necessary) doesn't seem to help, as it slows single-thread performance significantly.

    I think this flaw means that Python cannot really compete with Java or C# on big server systems. And I don't see how to fix it, either, without breaking the beauty of the language.