Pythonistas? <- Re: OT: Perl programmers?

[brueckd at tbye.com]

On Sun, 10 Feb 2002, Fernando Pérez wrote:

> David Eppstein wrote:
>
> >> Pythonista - Pie thun ee sta
> >> I took it as a unintended play on Sandanista, which is a group of  "freedom
> >> fighting" rebels in Nicaragua.
> >
> > I think it's a normal Spanish suffix, but it seems to be moving into
> > English -- I've also seen "Gapatista" used by some Calif. activists
> > <http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/pix/sv/j4p/Gapatista.html>
>
> Indeed, it's just the Spanish form of the 'ist' English suffix (pianist,
> violinist, etc.) It simply means 'who performs an activity'.

Could be from a number of languages; I always assumed quasi-Esperanto:

"-ist" - an individual professionally or avocationally occupied with the
idea or activity defined by the root [1].

Of course, in either Spanish or Esperanto it would more commonly be
"Pythonisto" anyway, so who knows.

-Dave

[1] http://www.webcom.com/~donh/esperanto.html