[Baypiggies] Python and progress

[Marilyn Davis]

On Sat, 8 Apr 2006, Aahz wrote:

> [I've got a book deadline and really shouldn't be spending time on this,
> but I can't resist this]
> 
> On Sat, Apr 08, 2006, Marilyn Davis wrote:
> >
> > Jim Stockford said that we should keep the name because it has name
> > recognition.  I'm not sure why we care about that.  We are not selling
> > anything.  Maybe you can explain, Jim?
> 
> We're not selling, but we are trying to be easy to find.  Changing the
> name of an organization makes that more difficult IMO.

Good point.  The baypiggies.net web site should stay there for
decades, either pointing to the new site, or mirroring the new site.  

> 
> > From my point of view, the thing about Python that is revolutionary
> > and profoundly correct is that backward-compatibility is a
> > second-class priority.  
> 
> Huh.  There are many many people who would disagree with that assertion,
> including me.  Backwards compatibility is so important that the dev
> community often resists changes -- and the big point of the Py3K effort
> is to provide an opportunity to break backward compability.  Python
> makes it simple and straightforward to write a script that will work with
> both 1.5.2 and 2.5.  Moreover, Python makes it easy to connect to legacy
> libraries written in C and other languages.
> 
> Perhaps I misunderstand you, though.

Oh yes, backward compatibility is very important but:

from __future__ import division

is the thing that makes me think that the top priority is the human
experience: programmer, teacher, student. 

It seems very courageous to me.

Maybe I have no right to extrapolate so much from so little.  Next
you'll think I play old Elvis records backwards to find spiritual
guidance.

I tell you though, a reasonable boring ole name would mean a lot to me
when I'm out there in the trenches trying to get people to take Python
seriously.

I know 'Python' has some silliness in its origen, but that's subtle,
and being subtle it's totally cool and never comes up as embarrassing.

Marilyn


> 

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