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Interviews: Q&A With Guido van Rossum

Posted by samzenpus on from the ask-away dept.

Guido van Rossum is best known as the creator of Python, and he remains the BDFL (Benevolent Dictator For Life) in the community. The recipient of many awards for his work, and author of numerous books, he left Google in December and started working for Dropbox early this year. A lot has happened in the 12 years since we talked to Guido and he's agreed to answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.

21 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. From Google to Dropbox by nurhussein · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hi,

    What prompted the move from Google to Dropbox? What did you do at Google, and what are you going to do at Dropbox?

  2. GIL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When will you remove the GIL?

  3. Who's watching by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does the NSA have access to our Dropbox contents, as is apparently the case with Microsoft Skydrive?

  4. BC Breaking changes in 3 by PktLoss · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Do you regret the swath of backwards incompatible changes in version 3 that have lead to such slow uptake, or do you feel it was the best move for the language moving forward?

    --
    paul reinheimer
    1. Re:BC Breaking changes in 3 by HaZardman27 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I would be very interested in seeing the answer to this. As a Python programmer I've nearly entirely avoided using Python 3.x in favor of 2.7. I just see fewer advantages to it than disadvantages (having to update old code, learning which libraries I use support 3.x, etc.). The Python community seems divided between 2.7 and 3, and this is problematic for a language designed to be clean with a "correct" and "pythonic" way of doing things.

      --
      Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
  5. Interviews by semanticgap · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Guido

    When you interviewed at Google - did they ask you brainteaser or hard algorithmic questions, and if so, what did you think of it?

    Cheers!

    --
    grisha.org
  6. When is python going to support parallel procesing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    When is python going to support parallel processing and multiple threads?
    Every other modern programming language does.

  7. Why did Python avoid some common "OO" idioms? by i_ate_god · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Interfaces, abstract classes, private members, etc... Why did python avoid all this?

    --
    I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
  8. Multi-line lambdas by NeverWorker1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One of the most common complaints about Python is the limitations of its lambdas, namely being one line only without the ability to do assignments. Obviously, Python's whitespace treatment is a major part of that (and, IIRC, I've read comments from you to that effect). I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about possible syntax for a multi-line lambda, and the best I've come up with is trying to shoehorn some unused (or little used) symbol into a C-style curly brace, but that's messy at best. Is there a better way, and do you see this functionality ever being added?

  9. One thing different by NeverWorker1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you could go back to the very start and change one thing about Python, what would it be and why?

  10. PyPy by Btrot69 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Do you see PyPy as the future ? http://pypy.org/
    Or do you remain unconvinced, and -- if so -- why ?

    1. Re:PyPy by occasional_dabbler · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Me too. In fact my question: Do you endorse PyPy?

      --
      "Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
  11. Another BDFL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What is your view on the tone that Linus uses on the LKML? Do you think it actually provides any benefits or just drives away would-be contributors?

  12. GIL and true parallelism by neonleonb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The main thing that keeps Python from being really useful for my projects is the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL). I would love to write Python for my data-intensive code, but it is impossible to get really good parallelism with Python; the multiprocessing library isn't a magic fix because then I have to move all my data back and forth between processes.

    When, if ever, should I expect to be able to use Python to do parallel data processing? What is the priority for this, and what would need to be done to make thread-level parallelism possible?

  13. Key question for any language designer by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Have the prospects of Python in any way improved since you grew a beard? To what degree does language success correlate to beard length?

    --
    I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  14. Any NSA backdoors in Python ? by Btrot69 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Are you aware of any attempts by the NSA to add a backdoor in Python ?
    Of course, if you did get an NSA letter, you wouldn''t be allowed to say.
    You are welcome to NOT ANSWER this question.
    We will take note of that ;)

  15. why should I adopt Python 3? by js_sebastian · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What are the big features/improvements of python 3 that could/should convince me to make the effort to switch over from python 2.x to python 3.x?

    I am not able to do the switch now as I rely on some libraries that have not finished converting to python 3 yet, but having something to look forward to other than the pain of backwards-incompatibility could go a long way in getting me to prepare for the change instead of ignoring the issue.

  16. Python as a shell language by js_sebastian · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Tools like ipython and fabric go a long way into making python into something that can replace my bash shell in many situations.

    The main obstacle to this use-case is python's semantic spacing and lack of braces (or something):

    - it is hard to do even a fairly simple if/else or loop in a single line so it will interact nicely with the terminal's history
    - it is hard to cut&paste code into the terminal because you have to be wary of leading spaces

    Ipython tries to solve some of this with shortcuts to bring up a built-in editor, which is an approach that works but is quite cumbersome.

    Do you think convenient usage on the interactive shell is a worthy goal that the language should support? if so, is there any direction the language or libraries could develop to better support it?

  17. If you were to design Python from scratch... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Guido, if you were to design Python from scratch now (without any constraint and legacy code using the old Python), what would you change and how different would it be from Python 3?

  18. What is your programming environment like today ? by Btrot69 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How often do you get a chance to write serious code ?
    What's your default OS ?
    Command shell ?
    Version control ?
    Editor ?
    IDE ?
    Web browser ?
    IM client ?
    email client ?

    late nights or early rise ?

  19. Python 3 by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How do you feel about the current state of the migration to Python 3 (Py3k)?
    From a user perspective it seems that the conversion of popular libraries has lagged far behind, which has impeded the transition. In my professional capacity, nearly every single system I use lacks an installed 3.x interpreter. In fact, 2.7 is a rarity. I'd like to get your thoughts.

    --
    "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"