Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#211

Post by njharman » Tue, Dec 11, 2012, 7:59 PM UTC

Luyt wrote: post #175

njharman wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No compile step. Python exists for a great many platforms. Also true for several other "scripting" languages.

But python code is compiled (and saved as *.pyc files). The compiled code is then executed by a VM, in the same way as Ruby, Java and C# and a lot of other languages work. Therefore, it is a bit stange to see people referring to Ruby or Python as 'scripting' languages. I'd call shell script a 'scripting' language, but not Java or Python.

No compile STEP means there is a REPL, there is no waiting seconds, minutes, hours while a compiler compiles and links code to native format, code on arch 'A' can be run on arch 'B' without [re|cross]compiling it and a few other less important things.

That there happens to be an PURELY optional for performance only pre-parsed representation for the interpreter is immaterial.

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#212

Post by slurgfest » Tue, Dec 11, 2012, 9:55 PM UTC

dangayle wrote: post #193

slurgfest wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The App Engine team at Google isn't really "regular Python users".

No, but the thousands of people who use it and come up with problems are.

That has nothing to do with it. GP said that it's good for Python that Guido doesn't work on it full-time, and instead keeps his hands dirty with other projects. But this experience of Guido's doesn't really expose him to 'thousands of people' any more than looking at the Python issue tracker would.

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#213

Post by 4ad » Wed, Dec 12, 2012, 7:21 PM UTC

bjoyx wrote: post #195

enneff wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when do language designers get rich? I can't think of a single person who got rich through language design.

Stephen Wolfram

Mathematica is much more than a language. People buy Mathematica for system, the language is just a small part of it. (And it's crap, just like MATLAB language is crap, but the full product itself is massively useful).