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Python Language Founder Steps Down (zdnet.com)
After almost 30 years of overseeing the development of the world's most popular language, Python, its founder and "Benevolent Dictator For Life" (BDFL), Guido van Rossum, has decided to remove himself entirely from the decision process. From a report: Van Rossum isn't leaving Python entirely. He said, "I'll still be there for a while as an ordinary core dev, and I'll still be available to mentor people -- possibly more available." It's clear from van Rossum's note he's sick and tired of running the organization. He wrote, "I don't ever want to have to fight so hard for a PEP (Python Enhancement Proposals) [PEP 572 Assignment Expressions] and find that so many people despise my decisions." In addition, van Rossum hints he's not been well. "I'm not getting younger... (I'll spare you the list of medical issues.)" So, "I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL, and you all will be on your own." From the email: I am not going to appoint a successor. So what are you all going to do? Create a democracy? Anarchy? A dictatorship? A federation? I'm not worried about the day to day decisions in the issue tracker or on GitHub. Very rarely I get asked for an opinion, and usually it's not actually important. So this can just be dealt with as it has always been. At Slashdot, we had the privilege of interviewing Guido van Rossum, a Computer History Museum honoree, in 2013.
I'm 60, and yeah, health things creep up on you. We'll lose the first generation of Free Software / Open Source folks soon.
Bruce Perens.
Meanwhile in Perl land, the founders have tried to step down multiple times, but nobody could read their resignation letters.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Thank you for the wonderful language. Someone who devotes such significant portions of his life to the greater good deserves respect. I also hope he has long years and a healthy life to live ahead of him and can watch his baby grown and mature even further. Python is a beautiful language, IT would be poorer without it.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Stepping down is no good, to truly be out of the loop you have to un-indent.
Nullius in verba
TrouserSnake Improovmet Proposal #0001: Because of the confusion caused by the inconsistent use and display rendering of White space Tabs versus spaces, the proposed change is to use backspaces to denote block clauses. A further extension of this proposal is to center justify all lines of text. This will end the discrimination of the left justification hegemony that disenfranchises cultures the practice Left justification. Center justification is fair and "just".
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I've taken over Python from Guido. My first edict will be to require that only tabs be used for whitespace. This will save valuable disk space. No complaints allowed. I am also assigning APK as my vice-dictator.
Are there any computer languages that are well-designed and well-documented?
"Well-designed" is purely a matter of opinion, and I'd say there are many that are well-documented. To be fair, there's a distinction between language documentation and standard library documentation, and sometimes library documentation can be a bit lacking -- but there are still many that are excellent.
Why was there enthusiasm for Python? It seems to me that now there is less enthusiasm for Python. Is that correct?
Python is the second most popular language on GitHub and its popularity has been climbing yearly. There are many reasons why there's enthusiasm for it, and they're mostly personal opinions, but many people would tell you the reasons they like Python are the speed of development, intuitive language syntax, a comprehensive standard library, and massive numbers of open source libraries.
Why do programmers adopt new languages so enthusiastically? Is that an interesting hobby?
Yes, actually, designing and learning new languages is fun for many people.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Python is incredibly popular due mainly to flexibility and ease of use. It's taught in schools so I imagine it will only keep growing although Guido leaving is a bit of a blow.
"sic" isn't used in the summary, so I assume you are referring to the use in the actual article, https://www.zdnet.com/article/...
the quote is: "I don't ever want to have to fight so hard for a PEP ... and find that so many people despise (sic) my decisions."
The word "despise" seems to be correctly spelled, so it's not clear why it should marked sic. Technically, that's just Latin meaning "thus," (implying correct as written verbatim from the original)-- but since it is correct, there's no particular reason to point that out-- it's not a misspelling.
So, I don't know why the "sic" either.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I don't have to defend my observation. I've stepped down.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
/. missed a trick in quoting the FA thus:
"I don't ever want to have to fight so hard for a PEP ... and find that so many people despise (sic) (sic) my decisions."
I've been using Python since the mid 2000's, and the evolution of its design has been worrying. The 2-to-3 transition is an obvious, glaring example.
But there has also been a steady accretion of additional syntax and language-level features, leading me to think the project is taking a C++-like attitude of never saying "no" to any proposal, just throw the next one on top of the pile. Type annotations, decorators... and now this recent PEP, which changes the most basic syntactic distinction in the language (expressions vs. statements).
Coherence and conceptual integrity are important, and each one of these changes chips away at the essence of the language and adds complication. Some amount of change is healthy, but it has to be managed carefully by language designers who are willing to say "no" and say it often. Erlang, Lua, and Go come to mind as well-managed languages that haven't lost sight of their original design.
I don't know if Python is better off without Guido, but from a language design point of view, I don't think he's done an especially great job.
And the mandatory whitespace is just idiotic, sorry but it is.
Python just implements it badly. Nobody complains about mandatory whitespace in Haskell, partly because it doesn't have Python's rough edges, and partly because it isn't strictly mandatory.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});