[python-advocacy] A Few Questions for the Python Community re Survey Response

[Jeff Rush]

The official Forrester Research survey form on dynamic languages has arrived
and as advocacy coordinator, I'm starting to fill it in.  Here are some
questions on which I could use some input.  Please reply via private email, to
avoid cluttering the lists and cross-posting issues, and I'll collate all
responses.

*Note* that we want the survey to address cPython, IronPython and Jython, so
add caveats as necessary to your answers.  And yes, some of the questions are
vague and difficult to answer precisely - let's do our best and remember the
objective is to provide practical answers that would be useful to a
manager/developer choosing a dynamic language, not to debate terms in an
academic sense.

1) Can a developer extend the language by adding new keywords?

My answer to this is no, short of recompiling the underlying parser -- with
the new AST engine of 2.5, am I wrong?  Can Jython or IronPython do it?


2) How large is the on disk runtime that has to be installed to run
   programs written in this language?

I don't run either Jython or IronPython -- can anyone who does provide an
answer?  And yes, it is a bit unclear as in whether it includes all of Java
and .NET or just the delta above those.  Go with the delta, it's smaller.


3) What applications are available to developers using this language
   that support application lifecycle for requirements, design,
   development, build, and test?


4) How many new major and minor features were added in the last release?

Let's assume they mean the last major release.


5) How many committers to the core does the project have relative to the
   scope of the project?

Hmm, how to measure the "scope of the project"?  Lines of code in cPython,
IronPython and Jython?  A rough guess of the class/module count?


6) How many bug reports have there been for the latest release?


7) How many email postings have there been (including developer and
   user lists) in the past six months?


8) How much communication occurs within the community? Besides email
   postings, what other forms of communication occur within the
   community? What forms of collaboration are used?


9) How complete is the language and framework support for Web service
   standards?

   Does the language support Core Web Services?
   Does the language supports Web Service Security standards?
   Does the language supports Web Services Management standards?
   Does the language provides Registry and Metadata support?
   Does the language support Web service Process and Delivery
   Control standards?
   Does the language support Web services Transactions and
   Packaging standards?

Not being a web services kind of developer, I need some help here.

10) How many companies offer end user support for the product? Is there
    one company primarily identified with the project that provides
    end customer support?

Definitely not a single company, like Sun for Java, at least for cPython and
Jython.  Is Microsoft the primary company providing end-user support for
IronPython though?  Many of these companies may be members of the PSF, so
speak up.


11) How many systems integrators use the language in application development?

Considering Python is a secret weapon for many companies, this will be hard.
But can anyone provide some anecdotal information?


Thank you very much for your time and effort,

Jeff Rush
Advocacy Coordinator