GvR Europython keynote described on lwn.net

[Rick Johnson]

On Saturday, August 1, 2015 at 12:45:45 AM UTC-5, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> > Yep, even the BDFL is actively developing in 2.7! He's no fool.
> 
> Of course not. Dropbox pay him to work on their systems,
> and he wants to keep his job.

Thanks for confirming my point that Python3 is not worth
developing with for at least the next five years.

> Are you aware that Dropbox are heavily pushing for static
> type hints in Python 3 as a prerequisite for them porting
> their masses of Python 2 code to Python 3? 

Well then, i hope they are ready to wait at least 10 years
before adopting Python3, because it will take that long to
work out all the kinks! Of course, with the cloud service
wars heating up, no one can be sure how long any of them
will survive. Web technology is moving much faster than 
Python.

> That's one of the motives for the masses of effort put
> into PEP 484, and its support PEPs, 482 and 483:

I do find it flattering that many of my ideas regarding
Python have been implemented: (1) It was me who recommended
"optional type checking" way back around 2008 (Heck, you
even agreed that it would be a good idea, but at the time, a
moratorium was preventing new features) (2) The fresher look
of Python.org is a result of my suggestions (3) The
interactive online console was my idea to compete with the
Ruby equivalent (4) I have pestered tutorial owners to
upgrade their tutorials to py3 compatibility, and many did!
(5) and last but not least, my courage to face down the
trolls has given courage to the shadow lurkers, who now
participate in open discussions on this list, and some have
even moved over to more dangerous grounds like Python-ideas.
All in all, my presence here has resulted in a fundamental
transformation of this group, and this language.

> As I understand it, Dropbox are paying Guido to work on
> static type hinting for Python, with the emphasis on
> proving program correctness, not speed, specifically
> because they want a big positive gain for moving to Python
> 3.

Well it's true that reducing bugs should always be
preferable to speed, but once the error potentials are
reduced, Dropbox will no doubt pivot to performance
enhancements -- this is the nature of our universe.