P*rl in Latin, whither Python?

[Alex Martelli]

"Peter Hansen" <peter at engcorp.com> wrote in message
news:3A10B2DA.D326F87C at engcorp.com...
    [snip]
> > Right!  This tends to be the dilemma of innovations, if they play
> > in a field where 'network-effects' (in the economics sense)
> > dominate.  Many new technologies, such as CDROMs and DVDs,
    [snip]
> Never heard of these concepts before, but they seem to explain a lot of
> things.  Such as why, back in 1887 and for twenty to thirty years after,
> Esperanto grew so quickly in popularity.  It demonstrated network

Good point!  At that time, no natural language exhibited the widespread
domination that English has today, and it was politically and culturally
unacceptable for either France or Germany to accept English OR each
other's languages as prevalent (though no really-cultured person could
really lack French, or Latin); at the same time, despite a steady and
gradual worsening of international relationships throughout this time,
it wasn't _all_ downhill -- there were also many phenomena pointing the
other way (e.g., the rebirth of the Olympic Games).


> people study it (those amateur linguists) for its own merits, while
> others continue to use it exclusively for travel (via the Pasporta Servo
> which allows Esperantists to travel the world via a network of other
> Esperantists).  There are subcultures of almost every kind in the
> Esperanto community.  (I suppose I'm not sure whether you call some of
> these things competitive advantages, or some kind of localized network
> effects, but one way or the other, it survives and slowly grows.)

I'd frame these as network-effects -- they are advantages flowing
from the fact that there ARE other users of the same "technology"
(cooperating among themselves in the ways you indicate), rather
than a 'competition' against non-users of the 'technology'.  The
latter might hypothetically emerge if, as I suggested, some
multinational corporation adopted Esperanto rather than English
for internal communication, for example.


Alex