Python Risk

[Grant Griffin]

In article <l2jiftg4k86ei3dtj1hqqb86ggu3j6hdpa at 4ax.com>, Daniel says...
>
>Dear Python Community,
>
>I'm now a strong Python advocate but a question that seems to be comming up
>quite a bit lately is, 

Where? <wink>

>what would happen to the language if something happened
>to our BDFL (aka GVR)? Would the language stagnate or is there enough of a
>'machine' out there to continue its evolution and support?

One point that I'm not sure has been raised so far is that for a language whose
central design premise is to minimize its number of constructs, stagnation might
just be a good thing (at least for us "Old Timers"--I've been doing Python for
about a year <wink>.)

Other folks have answered your question in terms of the Miracle of Open Source
<<please, a moment of silence>>.  Those points are valid, but even if the Python
did not grow one whit in terms of language constructs (or even just in terms of
what is bundled with the Pythonlabs distribution) it would do just fine.  By
analogy, we hardly regret that Dennis Richie does not add new constructs to C on
a quarterly basis: C is complete within the scale of what it's trying to be, and
so is Python.  (That said, I kindda like this whole nutty the "iterator" thing.)

But don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to belittle the work of the Pythonlabs
team--quite the contrary, I greatly appreciate their work, and I use it! 
However, the "growth" of Python does not primarily depend on growth in language
features.  Instead, at this point, growth is manifested primarily by its
adoption by nice folks like you and me, and by the growing availability of
books, third-party applications and distributions, and software development
tools.

you-can't-put-the-toothpaste-back-in-the-tube--especially-after
   -you-and-I-and-everybody-else-has-brushed-with-it-ly y'rs,

=g2

_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
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