Python Creator Guido van Rossum Leaves Google For Dropbox 261
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)."
Re:Python VS PHP (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Big Question? (Score:5, Insightful)
FUD, and more FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Big Question? (Score:5, Insightful)
Only when you already have it. Which, to be fair, he likely does.
Re:He Was Fired... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not a fractal of bad design (Score:1, Insightful)
In defense of PHP, Python and Ruby suck in their own ways too -- plain and simple. Maybe not as much, or in the same ways, but they still suck. Try them, and see for yourself; if you haven't seen why yet, it means you're doing it wrong or sticking to writing trivial code where they remain beautiful and all encompassing and what not.
In the case of Python, since it's on topic, try recent versions of Python's hex() function for instance. Assume it works like it does for other languages, and use it to shovel through a Core Dump and see how it works out for you -- it's not a pretty sight [yosefk.com].
Just use whatever you're most comfortable with, and get your job done. Deliver, get paid, and get a life.
Re:Python VS PHP (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Pay Decrease? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not a fractal of bad design (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm glad some one else will say what I've always said, PHP is a three-headed Satan baby. When the seventh seal was broken and the seventh trumpet sounded, PHP leaped out of the womb and ate its mother, the whore of Babylon.
Thanks for that awesome metaphor!
Every single time that delightfully deep and correct analysis of PHP's shortcomings is mentioned someone who doesn't know anything about language design chimes in with this ridiculous, "Yes but no language is perfect!" line. As if "every well-designed language consists of an intersection of compromises between incompatible ideals" is in any way an answer to, "PHP is fractal of bad design."
I'm not totally sure why anyone thinks "no language meets some impossible standard I've just made up in my head" is relevant to the obviously true claim that "some languages are better than others, and all languages are MUCH better than PHP."
Re:Pay Decrease? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Big Question? (Score:4, Insightful)
He's a hacker. Maybe he wants to work for a technology company instead of an advertising company.