Is Python Dead? Long Live Python!

[Paul Prescod]

Peter Hansen wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
> 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.

I still think that you have too much faith that the actual technical
features of the topic have any real effect on the structure of the books
(or the market). Once you move past the first ten books written by
zealots and early adopters, the rest are written by people like "the
Deitels" who have a structure and are looking for content to pour into
it.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing -- people who buy a book from the
Deitels (or the Dummies series or ...) know exactly what they are going
to get! As long as they don't do too much damage to the content pouring
it into their form, it doesn't seem so terrible. Sometimes books by the
"writing experts" are better than those by the technical experts. And
sometimes they are worse. 
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