Is Python Dead? Long Live Python!

[Peter Hansen]

Paul Prescod wrote:
> 
> Peter Hansen wrote:
> >...
> > The users of the first would have most of their needs met by the
> > online information available, and the incredible ease of learning
> > the language or of applying it in diverse areas.
> >
> > Publishers can smell this and would not put their efforts into
> > tree-killing for the second language.  Entire forests, however,
> > would be slaughtered in the name of the second language, to buy
> > Mercedes automobiles for the publishing executives.
> 
> If this is true, why are there so many Python books all of a sudden?

I wouldn't have described the situation as "so many", rather "so few",
but a quick Amazon search shows 30-odd Python books published or soon
to be, so maybe "all of a sudden" is the key.  I thought there were 
only ten!

I think, however, the trick is that with PHP the books were probably
being written with or even before the hype, and probably even
contributed directly to the sudden popularity.  After all, when someone
sees four whole shelves shouting ASP or PHP, surely that must be
one of the best languages ever invented.  Four lone books (one written
in 1995) dispersed across three sections of the bookstore clearly
indicate a dying language with a lack of focus....

Which means if Python's popularity has grown to the point of 
attracting significant publisher attention, then as you say "The number 
of books is a pretty good indication of a languages' growth. The only
problem is that it is an indicator that trails badly."

I stand corrected. :)

> Publishers clearly believe that Python is going to be a big thing.

Well, maybe if we could measure, sometime in the future when the
user base of Python and PHP is identical (not sure which is
actually larger now, mind you), publisher revenues from the books,
I might still be sort of right... I can't believe Python will
end up with the volume of five-inch thick books that PHP and
its ilk have barfed forth.

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