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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.

15 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?

    1. Re:GIL by HaZardman27 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think they've always been open about the fact that the GIL will be removed once someone offers a good solution for removing it.

      --
      Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
  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. 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?

  7. 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 ?

  8. 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?

  9. 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?

  10. 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/
  11. functional programming by ebno-10db · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Some people claim that Python is, at least partly, a functional language. You disagree, as do I. Simply having a few map and filter type functions does not make for a functional language. As I understand it those functions were added to the libraries by a homesick Lisper, and that several times you've been tempted to eliminate them. In general it seems you're not a fan of functional programming, at least for Python.

    Question: do you feel that the functional programming approach is not very useful in general, or simply that it's not appropriate for Python? It would be nice to hear your reasons either way.

  12. Re:Multi-line lambdas by DriedClexler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Solution:

    1) Make it a named function.
    2) Place the name where you'd otherwise put the lambda.

    It works, although you have to deal with the horror of a reusable function defined a few lines up.

    --
    Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
  13. 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 ?