back to article Python wriggles onward without its head

At the third annual PyBay Conference in San Francisco over the weekend, Python aficionados gathered to learn new tricks and touch base with old friends. Only a month earlier, Python creator Guido van Rossum said he would step down as BDFL – benevolent dictator for life – following a draining debate over the addition of a new …

  1. Someone Else Silver badge

    Now seems like the perfect time...

    ...to submit Python for ANSI and/or ISO standardization. It would have two positive effects: 1) it would remove any freneticism about updating the language, allowing updates on a even schedule (like C++, with its 3-year language updates), and 2) would give it a sense and feel of maturity.

    (I can hear the hue and cry now: "Standards committees are nothing but political forums...blah, blah, blah...." Yeah, like a BDFL isn't a political position?)

    You want adults in the room? Formalize the process -- it makes kids grow up real fast.

    1. bazza Silver badge

      Re: Now seems like the perfect time...

      Ok, but Python 2 or 3? ;)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Python 2 or 3

        Python 3. Python 2 gets renamed Taipan to avoid confusion and because that's a cooler name (the only reason the inland taipan isn't the world's most dangerous snake is that it's a recluse)

      2. Multivac

        Re: Now seems like the perfect time...

        I'd wait for 4!

        1. Korev Silver badge
          Joke

          Re: Now seems like the perfect time...

          I'm still holding out for Perl 6

      3. keithzg

        It's been almost a decade now

        By December of this year it will be a decade since Python 3.0 was released; just adopt Python 3 all goddamned ready :P

        1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

          Re: It's been almost a decade now

          just adopt Python 3 all goddamned ready

          Python 3 is itself a moving target, though thankfully reasonably stable since 3.4. But if you were an early adopter of the Python 3 only asyncio (yes, I know there's a backport) then you'll have your own private compatibility worries with more to come as the API gets adapted to real world use cases.

    2. JLV

      Re: Now seems like the perfect time...

      Not opposed per se, but standardization is not a panacea. And I’d like to know what it would improve in practice.

      Try getting ahold of the ANSI SQL standard for example. 180 Euro. Mind you, that price is a good way for rdbms vendors’ proprietary extensions and hacks to fly under the radar. But hardly very fitting to 2018s otherwise mostly free tooling and freeing up obstacles to participation by individual devs.

      Also, there is a large degree of standardization happening in Python land already. C-Python, where the VM is C-based is the best known. That’s what is known as Python. but there are alternatives like Pypy, Juthon, Cython. Everyone seems to coexist fruitfully via... standards.

      A podcast right after Guido’s departure indicates they’re more leaning towards a triumvirate or other small wise committee as a structure. Possibly even another Benevolent Dictator.

    3. Paddy

      Re: Now seems like the perfect time...

      ... For you to admit there is no evidence of a "frenetic" release cycle that harms the languages development; or of significant claims of immaturity. As for your hue and cry, I suggest you have your tinnitus seen to.

    4. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Now seems like the perfect time...

      ...to submit Python for ANSI and/or ISO standardization

      Not really: there are no differing vendors proffering different versions of the language and with the PEPs, Python already has a process for proposing changes. Special interests still get to force what they want down everybody else's throat.

      1. JLV

        Re: Now seems like the perfect time...

        >with the PEPs, Python already has a process for proposing changes

        Not to mention that the PEP process is open to anyone with a recognizably good idea to contribute to the language fundamentals. It is accepted for relatively new (to Python) programmers to contribute on PEPs that they have particular qualifications on and there are procedures in place to assist them. You don't have to be a core member to participate, though you will have to convince the core members your idea is a good one.

        For example, PEP 282, concerning the now-standard logging module, was written up by someone who wanted to port the logging API from Java.

        Contrast that with (some) standards committees on which nomination and membership is already the occasion for political infighting and maneuvering.

    5. Daniel von Asmuth

      Re: Now seems like the perfect time...

      Standardisation would be good. It will help major vendors craft other implementations. Who likes a family of incompatible languages like the Algols, the Javas and C# family?

      The name Guido appears not to mean 'guide', but related to the French name 'Guy' and the Latin name 'Vitus', and derive from old Germanic 'wid' meaning wood or forest.

  2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Raymond's right

    Python would be great on mobile if it were a first-class citizen. Unfortunately, GvR was actively discouraged from working on it while he was at Google. A focus on mobile would probably bring more badly needed improvements in parallelism.

    1. Mat Bettinson

      Re: Raymond's right

      There was a fairly short lived effort to support dynamic languages including Python via a project called SL4A, or scripting layer for Android. It was great, but it was sadly abandoned early in the piece. Google hasn't shown any interest in the concept.

      You mentioned parallelism, and that's probably why. The Java (or Kotlin) dev pattern is inherently event-based, which is the essential paradigm for low power mobile computing.

      Python's relationship with asynchronous programming is .... challenged shall we say. For years people used third party frameworks like Twisted to get things done. Now there's this standard library called asyncio which is just about the most bone-headed appallingly complex and error prone async programming scheme I've ever seen.

      I'm quite fond of Python, but there's some things it's a bit crap at, and this is one of them.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Python Self Actualization

    Oh, Python 3.

    Python is now just about a Fortran-77 level of maturity. The basics are there. Improvements have been done. It's spread broadly. It's now understood pretty well what it's good for (and what it perhaps isn't good for).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Python Self Actualization

      It may now be understood pretty well what it's good for and what it perhaps isn't good for but that doesn't stop evangelists using it for bloody everything even when totally inappropriate. I'm battling right now with a fanboi who has the "Python can do anything" mindset. Yep, and pretty much so can a Leatherman but I wouldn't use one to perform surgery or change a car wheel. Some people need to gain a shred of pragmatism.

  4. jelabarre59

    Dropped the box

    Maybe it's just that his current employer (Dropbox) needs him there full-time so they can figure out how to support more than ext4.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Python f**king rocks!

    ^ self (obviously not ^ this).

  6. Jeffrey Nonken

    I'm impressed! This time the photo actually matches the content -- that is, it's a photo of an actual python, not just some random snake. :)

  7. bombastic bob Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Django "providing a way forward" ? ew.

    From the article:

    "Hettinger believes examples of good governance in various Python projects, like Django and Project Jupyter, provide the core language developers with a way forward."

    I've seen Django, and had to fix things written for it. Without going into a slam-fest about it, I'd simply say that having Django drive where Python is going would be like Chrome and JQuery driving where web sites are going [whoops, too late!] and the results will be both DISMAL _AND_ PREDICTABLE.

    I have to wonder how much the former "Benevolent Dictator' was doing to STOP the bad things, though...

    Whenever Python becomes _SO_ "object oriented" and "feature rich" that it needs its OWN OPERATING SYSTEM to run, then you'll know I was right. It goes against the Unix Philosophy and, as such, is likely to implode from its own growing mass.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Django "providing a way forward" ? ew.

      I'm no fan of Django* and I don't think Raymond really is, but Django as a project has been pretty successful. Python's historical focus on extension via libraries is pretty unix-like and keeping the core small, along with the whitespace makes it the gateway drug for many non-programmers. The more recent changes that I personally don't appreciate have been around the whole type hints fiasco, which is very niche. 3.7's dataclasses could be so useful if they actually implemented runtime checking, but no, we get unreadable source code for the benefit of linters and compilers.

      * Obviously Pyramid is infinitely superior because it's not made by aliens!,

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Brackets

    Once Guido steps down can we sneak block brackets in please... LOL

    1. JLV
      Joke

      Re: Brackets

      I wasn't aware of it, but you can try it out already. Really. Just type this on the Python command line and proceed:

      `from __future__ import braces`

      If you're confused, Googling the code will get you to a Stackoverflow.

      Like it? try `import this` too!

      Do note the icon ;-) LOL

  9. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    Why do I keep thinking Guido's title should have been

    King Snake Head.

    Joking aside I kind of like Python and it seems I'm not alone.

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