Guido's last commit?
http://code.google.com/p/rietveld/source/detail?r=f66cc90304...
Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum
81–90 of 213 posts
Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum
#82Python has been a backbone of Dropbox since its early days as it allowed the startup to write code once but deploy it across platforms. Can anybody elaborate on this? Is the argument that Python is cross-platform because everybody uses GNU tools on every platform, or are there other reasons why Python is more cross-platform than other languages?
1) CPython is written in portable readable C code.
2) CPython has been around since 1991, and thus people have had the time to port it properly.
3) Python have shown an interest in supporting both Unix and Windows for a long time (and later OS X), thus every new change has to describe how it will interact with both systems.
You as an python developer don't have to worry much about different platforms since every new library and language feature tries to work the same on all supported platforms. (of course this doesn't always happen)
Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I heard that this tool was not well received at Google; anybody else hear this?
When I was there, everyone I knew used it and sang its praises. But it is a large company with a lot of teams. I am sure there were people somewhere who thought it was awful.
When it worked, it was great. When it was down or slow (Friday at 4:15 PM, anyone?), it was miserable.
Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum
#84I wonder, will Dropbox still allocate 50% of Guido's time toward Python development?
Further, donning our tinfoil hats, is it reasonable to suspect that Google is phasing out the use of Python internally? I've heard rumors that Python is no longer permitted for new projects within Google; hoping some Googlers here can confirm or deny this.
Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum
#85I wonder, will Dropbox still allocate 50% of Guido's time toward Python development? Further, donning our tinfoil hats, is it reasonable to suspect that Google is phasing out the use of Python internally? I've heard rumors that Python is no longer permitted for new projects within Google; hoping some Googlers here can confirm or deny this.
No such blanket prohibition currently exists.
Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum
#86It always strikes me as odd when something like this happens. Guido is still working nine-to-fives and Drew never has to work again. Can someone tell me why a brilliant person like Guido isn't worth a billion dollars? Have tons of fancy cars and a fancy house? Has to work for another company?
I know nothing about Guido outside of his work with Python but I assume he's not hurting for money at all. Nevertheless, our capitalist system does not reward people for brilliance alone; it rewards people for taking risks . Some very wealthy people are still being rewarded for the risks of their ancestors, and others have managed to keep wealth gathered in different economic systems, but that is generally how new we…
I don't get it. How is creating a new programming language in your spare time not a risk? You're spending valuable time creating something that is likely to fail (see the scores of niche languages no one uses).
I think what you mean by "risk" is something very specific: financial risk. If Guido had instead put time and, more importantly, money into starting a "lifestyle" startup on the side, he would have been financially rewarded if successful.
Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty sure someone like Guido is, at this point, not motivated by money. If there was a challenge he wanted to undertake at Google, I'm sure they'd give it to him already. He probably wanted to participate in growing another new tech company that has a lot of potential. That's an opportunity Google would find hard to counter.
Sorry, my statement was more generic. I wasn't trying to say that Guido is motivated by money, just that these are common ways to get someone to stay if that is indeed the issue that makes them want to leave. On the issue of challenges, maybe Guido has more pull on this, but there were recently some articles/discussion on HN about Google's hiring practices. They might hire you based on your PhD in databases, and then…
If it's a sorting hat, maybe he could ask Tim to adjust it. ;)
Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
They did. They even linked to wikipedia pages on him twice.
I think the parent was referring to his full name. "Guido" appears 7 times on that page, "Rossum" appears 0 times in text.
Yes, I was referring to the "van Rossum" part of his name. Sorry for not being clear.
Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum
#891. Will GO replace Python?
2. What seems to be happening to ndb.models in near future?
3. Will Guido leaving Google affect webapp2 in any way?
Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum
#90Python has been a backbone of Dropbox since its early days as it allowed the startup to write code once but deploy it across platforms. Can anybody elaborate on this? Is the argument that Python is cross-platform because everybody uses GNU tools on every platform, or are there other reasons why Python is more cross-platform than other languages?
Yeah, I don't think that trait distinguishes Python from Ruby or Perl, or even Java, for that matter. Cross-platform compatibility is an advantage of interpreted languages in general.
Not if we're talking about the real world (implementation), rather than the theoretical capability of a language in itself. Perl and Ruby don't see much love on Windows, particularly with GUI toolkits and the like. Python is the only one of the three that feels comfortable using on Windows, from the skeleton of the app down to actually distributing it.
Java is really good at cross platform apps though.
This is one of the few things that irks me in programming communities, often you'll seen criticism or praise of a point in a language, and then some language lawyer comes and talks about what said language can do in theory, rather than looking at the practicalities of actual, real world implementations, the community and culture surrounding it and so on. No one gives a crap if any dynamic language COULD be made to work the right way on many OS, people care if the work is done, not if it COULD be done.
The worst offenders are of course people victim of the sufficiently smart compiler curse.