'Computer History Museum' Honorees Include Python Creator Guido van Rossum (computerhistory.org) 73
On Wednesday the Computer History Museum, "the world's leading institution exploring the history of computing and its transformational impact on society," proudly announced the three Fellow Award honorees for 2018:
- Dov Frohman-Bentchkowsky -- "For the invention of the first commercial erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), which enabled rapid development of microprocessor-based systems."
- Dame Stephanie Shirley CH -- "For a lifetime of entrepreneurship promoting the growth of the UK software industry and the advancement of women in computing."
- Guido van Rossum -- "For the creation and evolution of the Python programming language, and for leadership of its community."
"We are delighted to induct these outstanding new Fellows with diverse contributions in hardware, in services, and in software," said Len Shustek, the Museum's board chairman. "They are true heroes of the Digital Age."
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We are diverse in all things except footware.
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What do you have to say to the 110lb woman?
Is she just supposed to submit to a 200lb man?
Would she be a coward hiding behind a gun?
Funny how you mention cowards. You people are always saying you don't need a gun because we have the Police. Then when they fail, you say the Police are under no obligation into protect you. That gives us 4 deputies cowering behind their car at a FL High school.
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It is sad that people like you, who think stupid things like that, exist.
Some reasons imo... apk (Score:1)
It's easy to learn, great body of online documentation & it works (for many things, not all, unlike say C++ or Delphi can - my personal favs) & it seems to have a great deal of "momentum" the past 1/2 decade or so going for it (means it probably won't "go away" like some other new ones may) - that's why imo @ least!
BIGGEST SINGLE REASON IMO THOUGH? ZERO COST/FREE!
* My nephew (@ Apple for 5 yrs. now) picked up on it @ RIT & turned me onto it - I was "up & running" writing code in it in a day'
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Because people are dumb.
And some people don't stay up to date.
in our days, Python is no longer suitable as a big size "web scale" web development platform.
Why? Disks are now SSD and about 100 - 1000 times faster than a spinning disk.
Anyway, Python is a great teaching language and is used in many scientific projects, and it is straight forward.
There are variations that compile to machine code and are as fast as C ... so who cares?
Python is superb if I have to query foreign web servers for the data, as the bo
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every time I hear something is gaining momentum I think fad and hucksterism.
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Putting something into a museum has not a giant momentum where I live ...
Re:Question... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Erm, yeah, but WxANYTHING is Microsoft Windows MFC from the mid 1980s.
Who wants to program in that?
No idea what better Python libs are for GUI applications, but most certainly not the dreaded WxANYTHING libraries.
Re: Question... (Score:4, Insightful)
Python has a lot of strengths:
-it is old and stable
-very easy to learn, install, & expand
-very easy to read other's code!!
-good documentation & tutorials
-easy conceptualizations (int, list, dict, string, method, class, generator)
-hugh library that addresses 90% of common problems
-pretty big, stable, & open community
-good leadership; similar to Linux, but more dictator-like and less foul language.
-you can start small and slowly build & expand your knowledge.
-takes a good middle road in terms of hiding vs exposing complexity
-easy to prototype solutions
There are shortcomings of course. Most other languages do some of the above better. Perl for example is fairly good at most of the above but it comparibly falls short in terms of code maintenance & legibility.
The leap to Python 3 was pretty bad for the community. I just switched 2 months ago. But it's not that hard (nor easy) to switch.
Re: Question... (Score:4, Interesting)
Perl for example is fairly good at most of the above but it comparibly falls short in terms of code maintenance & legibility.
That really depends on the programmer. I always write and document all my code, including Perl, with the idea that someone else, perhaps less experienced, will have to pick it up. I learned this lesson a long time ago when I had to pick up some of my own code after a few years had gone by and had to figure out what the hell I had written. Part of being a senior programmer is setting an example for more junior people on your team and helping them learn from your experience.
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If your code was properly readable, you would [not] have to waste time documenting.
That's not necessarily true. It's doesn't hurt to document the reasoning or necessity of some code, or something that may have been written a certain way for a specific reason. It also doesn't hurt to add documentation to help with knowledge transfer, either domain or coding. Documenting the data structures and data files (or the code to process either) is often helpful as well. Your assertion holds better for shorter, simpler programs than longer, complex ones -- assuming you've ever written any of the la
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You are not from this, planet are you?
"Java, write once, run everywhere!"
"Perl, write once, read nevermore!" (But it runs everywhere, too)
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I always write and document all my code, including Perl, with the idea that someone else, perhaps less experienced, will have to pick it up
Trying to fix that for you ...
I always write and document all my code, especially Perl, with the idea that someone else, usual me perhaps less experienced or just not looking at the code for a decade, will have to pick it up or replace it by a more sane language
I started with Perl around 1992 or 1993 ... did some serious stuff in it around 1997 and later never looked t
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Perl for example is fairly good at most of the above but it comparibly falls short in terms of code maintenance & legibility.
I program in both and have never really understood this complaint.
I think it might be that Perl allows you to integrate RegEx directly and therefore is more commonly used. Perl's string interpolation makes print statements much cleaner and easier to understand. And how different ways is there to format a string in Python?
Re: Question... (Score:2)
Compared to most languages, python was stable. You should look up the histories of C, C++, COBOL, ABAP, etc. Even today, look at Java, & Powershell. You will see people doing version checks for _minor_ releases in their code because even simple stuff has deprecated or came online.
It's a nightmare to read anyone's code! I do this quite a lot in many languages. Python is just less so than others. And if you think legibility is only from the white space, you haven't seen enough complex code. Python doesn
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Rule of Economy
Developers should value developer time over machine time, because machine cycles today are relatively inexpensive compared to prices in the 1970s. This rule aims to reduce development costs of projects.
Rule of Generation
Developers should avoid writing code by hand and instead write abstract high-level programs that generate code. This rule aims to reduce human errors and save time.
Rule of Optimization
Developers should prototype software before polishing it. This rule aims to prevent developer
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give it a try and find out.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
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Its a shame there isn't an IT equivalent of rottentomatoes.com because then poetterring would have his own special section, starting with the dogs dinner known as pulse audio and ending with the worse re-implementation of init the unix world has ever seen.
What about me... (Score:1)
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Where's my red stapler? :P
awards are idiotic (Score:1)
And that's all there is to it.
Computer History Museum? (Score:1)