Python Evangelism

[Douglas Alan]

rtilley <rtilley at vt.edu> writes:

> Steve Holden wrote:

>> Doug Bromley wrote:
>>> I can see Ruby overtaking Python if we don't ALL do something about it.

> I think it's the name. Python. Let's change it to something nicer.

I agree that names are very important -- Java would never have caught
on the way that it did if Sun had left the name as "Oak".  I think
you're wrong about the name "Python", though.  Snakes are cool and
have street cred.  That's why there are cars with names like "Cobra"
and "Viper".

It doesn't matter if the average joe is scared when they see a folder
named "python" on their computer, as the average joe isn't a
programmer.

Ruby didn't start catching on until Ruby on Rails came out.  If Python
has a naming problem, it's with the name of Django, rather than
Python.  Firstly, Django doesn't have "Python" in the name, so it
doesn't popularize the language behind it, even should Django become
very popular.  Secondly, Django just doesn't have the ring of "Ruby on
Rails".  They should change the name to "Blood Python" instead.  Okay,
well, maybe not.  How about "Green Tree Python"?  Hmmm, kind of
boring.  Well, maybe "Python on the Bullet Train"?  Okay, too
derivative.  "Maglev Python"?  "Python with Panache"?  "Python on
Prozac"?

I give up.  In any case, I'm sure Django was a great musician, but the
product needs a better name to have any chance of displacing Rails.

|>oug