Is Python a commercial proposition ?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:09:38 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:

> On 2012-07-30, Stefan Behnel <stefan_ml at behnel.de> wrote:
> 
>> Still, you may still get away with the above statement by providing a
>> sufficiently narrow definition of "standalone". By my definition, there
>> isn't much "standalone" code out there. Most code I know interfaces
>> with a couple of external tools, libraries or backends, usually written
>> in languages I don't have to care about because they provide a language
>> independent interface.
> 
> It's not really relevent to this discussion, but there is _lots_ of
> stand-alone code out there. It runs in sub-one-dollar microcontrollers
> that are programmed in assembly language or in C without external
> libraries (sometimes not even the "libc" that's included in the C
> language definition).  Those microcontrollers are everywhere in toys,
> appliances, and all sorts of other "non-computer" things.

And at that level, you aren't going to write your app in Python anyway, 
and not because of the GIL. (These microcontrollers are unlikely to have 
multiple cores -- why the hell does your microwave oven need two cores?)

It seems to me that those who claim that the GIL is a serious barrier to 
Python's use in the enterprise are mostly cargo-cult programmers, 
parroting what they've heard from other cargo-cultists. It really is 
astonishing the amount of misinformation and outright wrong-headed 
ignorance that counts as accepted wisdom in the enterprise.



-- 
Steven