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Python Creator Guido van Rossum Leaves Google For Dropbox
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)."
What's more elegant and nicer in Python than PHP?
Python isn't a fractal of bad design.
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.
What do you mean? Skydrive has a 2GB limit on filesize (just found this out the other day, when trying to store a 3 GB encrypted backup there). On Dropbox the only limit is your available storage. (I have 10 GB:) ) Skydrive has no differential sync. Change 1 byte in a 2GB file, it uploads the whole thing again. Dropbox breaks down the files in (I think) 4 MB pieces, uploads only what changed. I'm in no way affiliated with Dropbox, I just think it's more flexible. It's true that Skydrive offers more free storage space though.
.sig: No such file or directory
And what did he use to do at Google? Did he work on Python only in his spare time or did Google pay him to hack on it?
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.
Quite right. And don't forget about LAN sync. Dropbox clearly is technically more advanced than Skydrive. The only handicap I see with Dropbox is the lack of some sort of permission system when you share folders. Or at least a read-only setting.
I've always loved PHP - it gives flexibity and I just love coding using it. But I know many people love Python too. What's more elegant and nicer in Python than PHP?
I've always like skydrive a lot more than dropbox due to it's more lax restrictions. Nothing to do with the programming language whatsoever.
I too prefer to skydive rather than program in PHP. Personal preference, I suppose...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
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.
I've professionally programmed in both Python and PHP. There's no reasonable competition - Python wins hands down.
A few of the advantages of Python over PHP:
filtered = [x for x in unfiltered where x.foo=="bar"]
In PHP the same thing looks like:
$filtered = array_filter($unfiltered, function($x) { return $x->foo == "bar"; });
I am officially gone from
Is that with or without a parachute? Because falling out of an airplane to a grizzy death doesn't sound so bad after you've been programming PHP all day.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
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.
Is that with or without a parachute? Because falling out of an airplane to a grizzy death doesn't sound so bad after you've been programming PHP all day.
You think PHP is bad? Why in my day we used COM with VB and C++, uphill both ways.
But just try telling that to kids these days. They'll never believe you.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
In my case, was that Google are moving away from Python. Also see the last answer here:-
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2560310/heavy-usage-of-python-at-google
Perhaps there are some anonymous Googlers out there that are brave enough to comment?
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.
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.
One word for all you whiny kids today: MFC.
Jesus H. I'd rather pull out my teeth. With pliers.
Python use within Google has been on the decline for years now. It's not exactly a secret that they discourage using it for new projects.
Guido wasn't 'here's a box for you crap, you have five minutes before security escorts you out the door" fired. It was closer to 'we don't see a role for you here, quit now and save us both the hassle of having to let you go' type fired.
He has really accomplished nothing since he was hired. And needless to say with Google actively replacing Python in the company with Go, he was acting like a petulant ass.
Google is a strange place to work. It's entirely possible that, by the performance metrics they typically use, it was a mutual parting of the ways; I don't know, and unless you are on the performance review committee for his engineering subgroup, neither do you (and if you are, you should be keeping your mouth shut, instead of posting here, even as an AC). But assuming your theory is correct, don't mistake an organizational inability to effectively utilize his talents with him not having them.
That said, your second paragraph is basically BS. Go never really caught on because it did not have a cross-platform library; the reason was that it insisted on directly trapping its system calls itself, which is great, if you aren't an engineer with a MacBook Pro trying to do work at home, and want the same system call semantics for e.g. "kill" or "sigaction". Hint: at the top of Libc on Mac OS, kill takes 2 parameters; at the user/kernel boundary, it takes 3 so the kernel knows whether it should use traditional Mac OS signal semantics, or use POSIX 1003.1-2001 semantics (same as Linux). Until they drop Mac OS X for Linux (probably still running on Apple hardware), or the Go folks fix their language binding to use LibSystem (Libc) instead of trapping their own system calls, I don't see that changing in favor of Go adoption any time soon.
While Go is an "official language", along with C/C++ there are two others, one of which is Python, and not a lot of work was actually being done in Go. My last major project at Google was exclusively Python, and all of the testing infrastructure for Chrome OS is written in Python. One of the first classes you are offered as part of new employee orientation, apart from "How to use Perforce" is "Python Programming".
Personally, I could see him leaving as being part of the generally publicly announced Larry Page effort to focus Google on working on fewer total projects, and on hiring for specific roles, instead of just hiring everyone who met the right level of smart, and figuring something for them to do afterwards. But frankly, I do not see increased focus fixing what Larry's attempting to fix with it. I suspect this is more likely than your theory.
Either way, I expect his contributions at Dropbox will be valuable to them, and wish him luck there.
You know, I've gotten used to anti-language screeds being the frustration of the ignorant and lazy compounded with childish exaggerations and intemperance even I boggle at.
But .... wow. Just wow. NULL < -1 && NULL == 0? "0133" == "133" because of implicit string-to-numeric conversions, but 0133 != 133? And the ? : implementation just leaves those examples in the dust.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Google's search engine was originally in Python, but the company has since moved on to use Java on the front end, C++ on the back end, and Python has been relegated to glue code.
On the other hand, Dropbox has been using Python for its entire stack. I believe they made a few performance related contributions to CPython as well.
Guido is a great engineer (besides being a language designer), and still writes a lot of code. He probably would get more satisfaction working at a growing company where Python is a first class citizen rather than at Google.
That's funny, because I just interviewed with Google last week for an SRE role, and they specifically wanted someone with hardcore Python and Java development experience, at the filesystem and kernel level. They're moving -everything- into those two language engines.
Also: What's a "PHP" or a "VB"?
A security exploit.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
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.
ARRGGH!!! &$ )!$!@$ !@ !!&*(!#@!!!!!!!!!
Now while writing an entire sharepoint replacement in one line of perl is impressive, it doesn't really constitute a specific argument against MFC.