Article on the future of Python

[Terry Reedy]

On 9/27/2012 12:16 PM, Devin Jeanpierre wrote:

> Charitably, maybe we'd call this a way of encouraging people who are
> discouraged by the bleaker tone of Calvin's post. And that's valid, if
> we're worried about morale. Definitely Calvin's post could be -- and
> has been -- taken the wrong way. It could be taken as a way of saying,
> "Python is doomed!", even though that isn't something Calvin ever
> wrote (he appears, from my reading, to be more worried about a
> stagnating community than a failed language).

The title was "i-am-worried-about-the-future-of-python" (as in 'I am 
afraid Python will not have one'), not 'python has problems in some 
application areas'. Given the doom-y title and the tone of the article, 
excuse me for thinking doom was the topic.

As for community: Calvin is worried that all the hot new people in these 
particular areas will not use and contribute to Python and the community.

> Under that
> interpretation, we would want other, more encouraging voices around,
> talking about ways in which Python is good and will survive.

And that is what the second article was about. It turns out that there 
are hot new people in other growing areas where Python is growing. 
Computing for science, megadata, and education are not going away. Being 
a glue language for numerical computing was Python's first killer 
application nearly two decades ago, and it still is an important one.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy