[python-advocacy] how many python users are there?

[Carl Karsten]

Laura Creighton wrote:
> I need a figure for a report.  Anybody got anything that is recent 
> and quotable?  Python users europe-wide and world-wide are most useful,
> but if you happen to have a very accurate one for some place else,
> I can use that too.
> 

not what you asked for, but may help:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.htm?tiobe_index

Your question got me thinking:  How could such a number be derived?
First we have to understand that realistically, it can't.  but we can come up 
with some interesting numbers that will at least put things in perspective.

Keep in mind that MS doesn't even have good numbers.  for something like VB (or 
maybe now vs.net) it has "copies sold" and "copies registered" - which doesn't 
include the copies bundled with their MSDN pile of disk deals.  and just because 
someone registers does not really make them a user.

I think what might be useful: number of python related e-mail addresses.  as to 
not alarm anyone about harvesting email addresses, change that to number of 
hashs of addresses.

 >>> hash('carl at personnelware.com')
1785525014

Or if we want to reduce the risk of dupes:

 >>> hashlib.md5('carl at personnelware.com').hexdigest()
'a9f693639892c6b39ba3e14dbb78e1fb'

So we setup a little web page that lets people who have access to list's of 
python related e-mails upload lists of hashes.  server side stuffs them into a 
db, ignoring dupes.  add a date field or 2, vola!  statistics!

yeah, this is totally un-scientific and un-verifiable, and subject to someone 
uploading total crap just to inflate the number.  so maybe we have to have some 
screening process for who we allow to upload.  I bet 95% of the emails are 
within the reach of about 20 people, and I bet Goodger or someone would be able 
name/approve those people in about 5 minutes.  each of them would have a small 
task of scraping together the 100,000+ addresses...

yes, many people use more than one.  yes, some people have never posted 
anywhere, yes yes... but it would still be a telling number.

and if this was updated each month, we could see how many new items come come up.

Carl K