Python -- (just) a successful experiment?

[Paul Boddie]

Eric Pederson wrote:
> Why do web scripters still cling to their Perl, even in corporate environments?

Ignorance. One could argue that Python should be promoted more, but
Perl had the "cool tool" buzz a good ten years ago. Such habits don't
fade away very quickly.

> Why hasn't Python made inroads against Java?

I would guess that most people deploying Java want to be able to buy
and deploy some big name product with the pretense that they can always
switch to another big name product later on, all in the name of
"multiple vendor support".

> Why is Ruby, and Ruby on Rails, getting such strong play?

Relentless hype from blogging celebrities?

[...]

> Applications like Zope and Plone help drive more people toward the language, though the competition is stiff.

If you've tried Plone, you must have noticed that it too installs
itself nicely, or at least it did when I last tried it out on a
proprietary operating system with no development tools of its own. This
observation somewhat undermines your assertion that the vanilla Python
language runtime should be bundled with the kitchen sink in order to
compete with the most hyped solution of the day. Indeed, I'd suggest
Zope and Plone as fairly interesting choices for those people wanting
to dabble with a self-contained Web solution but who don't want to
start choosing from a long list of technologies.

Paul