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Python Creator Guido van Rossum Leaves Google For Dropbox

Posted by Soulskill on from the they-just-typed-import-guido dept.

New submitter mrvan writes "Guido van Rossum, the proclaimed Python Benevolent Dictator For Life, has left Google to work for Dropbox. In their announcement, Dropbox says they relied heavily on Python from the beginning, citing a mix of simplicity, flexibility, and elegance, and are excited to have GvR on the team. While this is, without a doubt, good news for Dropbox, the big question is what this will mean for Python (and for Google)."

9 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Python VS PHP by mrvan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm a big python fan. It encourages elegant and readable code and has a good library and community. The lack of static typing hurts a bit in now having good static checking ("compiler errors") and IDE autocomplete, but it also means that you can scrap tehe 90% of code that java forces you to write to declare and then work around interfaces and abstraction layers :-)

    I haven't written PHP the last 10 years, so I can't really compare to state of the art, but I felt that PHP encourages sloppy programming and lack of separation of concerns by sticking a lot of business logic in the presentation layer. But that be more about the language being used by a lot of people without formal programming training than about the language itself.

  2. Big Question? by folderol · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why? Maybe he just wanted a change, and wasn't especially concerned about the pay - people do that you know. Sometimes job satisfaction is what does it. Sometimes a fresh set of challenges. Money is severely over-rated as a driver.

    1. Re:Big Question? by Riddler+Sensei · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Money is severely over-rated as a driver.

      Only when you already have it. Which, to be fair, he likely does.

    2. Re:Big Question? by Swampash · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He's a hacker. Maybe he wants to work for a technology company instead of an advertising company.

  3. FUD, and more FUD by Kergan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Best I'm aware, Python was important for Google long before Guido got hired by Google. He was the cherry on the pie, if anything.

    As such, it means absolutely nothing for Google, bar that they lost someone who they may have wanted to keep in-house.

  4. Re:He Was Fired... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I work for Google.

    Let me just say that you're full of shit.

    First of all, python is just as much in use now as before. Secondly, it will continue to be so.

    Secondly - fired? Nope.

  5. Re:Python VS PHP by bogaboga · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "...PHP encourages sloppy programming and lack of separation of concerns by sticking a lot of business logic in the presentation layer..."

    Dude, I disagree with this statement. Why? Because the choice of where to place business logic lies entirely on the coder. It isn't an attribute you'll find tied to a system just because it employs a particular a language, in this case PHP as you say. The same can be said about Microsoft's Visual Basic as used on its JET DB engine found in MS Access.

  6. Re:Pay Decrease? by rk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, I'd take shoveling out a barn at 500/hr. It would get me exercise and a chance to be alone with my thoughts, which would let me do fun things like programming with python for things I want to program, instead of what someone else wants programmed.

  7. Re:Pay Decrease? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    True. SRE doesn't tend to write the consumer facing services. We tend to write the stuff that keeps stuff running.

    And as you bloody well know, it's mostly written in Python and various DSL's.

    Signed,
    Someone who actually works in SRE at Google.