Using Python for processing of large datasets (convincing managment)

[Thomas Jensen]

Alex Martelli wrote:
> Thomas Jensen wrote:

[snip]

> Come visit www.python-in-business.org -- we founded the Python
> Business Forum, a non-profit alliance of firms which do use Python
> "for key functions", and one of the PBF's primary purposes is to
> help reassure CEO's (and CTO's &c, for larger companies:-) about
> just such issues as these.

Appriciate the link. I'll keep it for later use, should we go for Python.

> Point 1 is basically never a problem because Python is to easy
> to pick up (and somebody else's Python code is easier to maintain
> than for any other language), but the PBF aims to help, in the
> long run, by establishing a network and referral point for
> Python trainers and consultants.

Sounds interresting.

> Point 2 is easy -- Zope Corporation relies on Python so much it
> pays to employ the Python core team, Google uses Python enough to
> demand Python skill in some of its job offers, Fidelity (a huge
> financial trust in Britain) is dependent on Python (tbe basis of
> all of ReportLab's excellent products) for all of its reports-as-
> PDF web sales strategy -- that's three.  We can no doubt find
> more, but three is what your boss asked for.

Oh, I thought Zope was "just" a product.
Google and Fidelity, nice! (Do you have any links regarding this?)

> Point 3 is troublesome if taken literally -- I know of NO language
> claiming 99.999% freedom from defects for its implementations.

I'm sorry I didn't make myself clear (in Denmark usually 5 nines means 
uptime or accesability for web services). Actually I belive we "only" 
guarantee 99,99% to our customers :-)

> The standard Python distribution is certainly far less buggy than,
> e.g., most Microsoft language products I've ever used -- on which
> many corporations, wisely or otherwise, rely for their business --
> but that's still a FAR sight from 1-part-in-100,000-or-lower
> defect rates.  One of PBF's plans, named "Python in a Tie", is
> a very stable Python distribution, due to be blessed by Guido but
> tested very intensely by the PBF.  But the targets, though not
> quantified so far, are NOT as ambitious as 99.999%.  If you're
> planning deployment in life-critical applications (the only
> reason I can see for such strict, enormously expensive demands)
> I think, regretfully, that you'll have to look elsewhere (I'll
> be curious to hear about what software tools you find that claim
> those reliability levels, at least if they back it up with real
> hard-cash reliability insurance -- words are cheap).

I wholeheartedly agree.
I belive the concern was more about Python taking down our servers and 
thereby ruining our uptime (we have a load balancing unit, so both 
servers had to go down).
Having used Python quite a bit, I known that wouldn't happen but 2 
people saying it is better than one :-)

I've worked a lot with MS tools professionally and must say that my view 
of MS have gone from bad to worse. Visual Basic is by far the worst, 
most clumsy and buggy computer language I've ever used. I've come to 
really hate that language. The only "good" thing about it, is that it's 
so closely bound to COM, that COM components are really easy to make.
Don't even get me started about the stability of using IIS for SOAP 
servers :-(

-- 
Best Regards
Thomas Jensen
(remove underscore in email address to mail me)