Is Python Dead? Long Live Python!

[Peter Hansen]

Paul Wright wrote:
> 
> In article <mailman.994711525.24100.python-list at python.org>,
> Paul Prescod  <paulp at ActiveState.com> wrote:
> >> > From what I can tell, PHP and Ruby
> >> > are flying past Python in acceptance rates.  The difference that I see
> >> > in these groups, is a sensitivity to industry, rather than an
> >> > adoration for pure acedemic elegance.
> >
> >I think even the Ruby people would be surprised to hear about Edward's
> >statistics about it flying past Python!
> 
> Shurely he means that the derivative of the number of users wrt time is
> greater for Ruby than for Python, which may be true because Python has a
> far larger user base and so is nearer "saturation".

Wouldn't this only hold true if Ruby's _potential_ user base were
sufficiently large compared to Python's potential user base?  

I believe that many more people will eventually use Python than will
use Ruby (language war thread!).  That might mean Python's rate of
increase in user base per unit time is still larger than Ruby's.

(And this certainly fits with my own observations over the last year.)

-- 
----------------------
Peter Hansen, P.Eng.
peter at engcorp.com