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by maxim khesin.
Original Post: Guido-NYC
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Today I went to a somewhat historic event - the first Google "techtalk" open to public, featuring none other than our Benevolent Dictator.
The talk he gave was a shortened prequel to the two talks that he is planning to give at PyCon. There was a short history of Python (for the long version I highly recommend thisaudio), followed by description of the upcoming Python2.5 and some indication of future direction, and Q&A. And you guys missed it, haha! Ok, I am not a sadist, so just hold on a little while - Google is going to post the entire thing on, you guessed it, Google Video. I'll link to it as soon as I find out it's up.
So I am not going into the go into in detail, but will mention some of the interesting bits from the post-talk huddle, as well as I remember them (feel free to correct me if anyone else was there, I am sure my hearing was selective, but I hope not distorted.)
Q(me). What other language technologies interest you? A. No time now, but Haskell seems important. Languages like Haskell and ML are great for people with 150+ IQ, though, and Python will never be that. (He humbly implied something about himself not being one of the 150+ people. Cm'on, Guido, we NEED the phantasy! BTW, Haskell has been up on my radar also, and I recently found a full video course on FP using Haskell here ).
Q. So what's with the web frameworks? How's Django looking? A. I met the creator of Django. He seems to be able to get the job done (right), not (just) technically, but (also) because of his energy, personality and responsiveness to the community.
Q(me). Do you feel most of the value of Python is in the language or the library? Particularly, do you have any concerns that, for example IronPython will implement the language, but will divert people away from the Python's standard library towards .NET APIs? (This was a double question, so there is a double answer) - The language and the library are very much intertwined. The language enables the library, and the library influences the language in turn. (To me this sounds like the value is in both, at least for Python. Other languages' economics are different) - I personally know the creator of IronPython, and I do not have concerns about Python lib. in the Iron implementation. (I think this means that IronPython intends to support the standard Python library APIs, and whether they are implemented on top of .NET is irrelevant.)
Q. So why no anonymous lambdas with statements? A. Since Python is not a curly-brace language, it makes it nearly impossible to cram a bunch of statements in the middle of a function parameter list (primary use case for lambda). Besides, beginning the parameter list '(', then having a bunch of statement lines and then closing the parameter list ')' would hardly be readable. (Which BTW is why Ruby blocks are nice - they are coded AFTER the function parameter list, and passes as magical last parameter. They are solving the readability problem quite nicely, though this kind of magic is not compatible with Python culture).
Then there was some whining question about Python and threads. The guy didn't know what he was talking about. Ok, I'll give him some credit - he probably encountered some problem previously, but totally forgot the context. That wasn't a problem per se, I certainly have asked my share of clueless questions, but kept trying to 'explain' that which he was clueless about. Guido was somewhat annoyed, not like the knights who say neee (if you do not understand the last four words, ignore of Google them.), but close. This was entertaining, because it was like watching a usenet group, live.
Also, Guido is putting out a book, expect it this Fall!
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