Encouraging Python adoption in your organization

[Neil Benn]

Ian J Cottee wrote:

> Daniel Dittmar wrote:
>
>> On the other hand, Paul Graham paints Java programmers as dimwits. So 
>> quoting him is likely to start a flamewar. This is perhaps not the 
>> best choice from a diplomatic point of view.
>
>
> That is not what he said or meant. As he himself clarifies:
>
> """In a recent talk I said something that upset a lot of people: that 
> you could get smarter programmers to work on a Python project than you 
> could to work on a Java project.
>
> I didn't mean by this that Java programmers are dumb. I meant that 
> Python programmers are smart. It's a lot of work to learn a new 
> programming language. And people don't learn Python because it will 
> get them a job; they learn it because they genuinely like to program 
> and aren't satisfied with the languages they already know.
>
> Which makes them exactly the kind of programmers companies should want 
> to hire. Hence what, for lack of a better name, I'll call the Python 
> paradox ... """
>
> http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html
>
> Ian

Hello,

You can quote it in different ways :

---
But when you choose a language, you're also choosing a community. The 
programmers you'll be able to hire to work on a Java project won't be as 
smart <http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html> as the ones you could get 
to work on a project written in Python
---

This is from his _own_website - he then follows it up with :

---
Though, frankly, the fact that good hackers prefer Python to Java should 
tell you something about the relative merits of those languages.
---

Next we have :

---
And of all the great programmers I can think of who don't work for Sun, 
on Java, I know of zero.
---

    On the retract posted above :

---
It's a lot of work to learn a new programming language.
--

    The response on this would be - 'but you just told me that python is 
'easy to learn''.

    Although that was probably retracted afterwards - the fact that that 
quote exists will be picked up people.  I'm not insulting the quality of 
writing as it is a very well written article - it just isn't gonna help 
anyone trying to advocate python in a sensible business, that kind of 
retort sounds like an American election campaign!!

Cheers,

Neil

-- 

Neil Benn
Senior Automation Engineer
Cenix BioScience
BioInnovations Zentrum
Tatzberg 47
D-01307
Dresden
Germany

Tel : +49 (0)351 4173 154
e-mail : benn at cenix-bioscience.com
Cenix Website : http://www.cenix-bioscience.com