[pypy-svn] rev 1541 - pypy/trunk/doc/funding

[lac at codespeak.net]

Author: lac
Date: Fri Oct  3 13:27:55 2003
New Revision: 1541

Modified:
   pypy/trunk/doc/funding/B3.0_impact.txt
Log:
I just wrote this here, and discovered it belongs in 3.2 not 3.0.
No matter.  Fix later, save the work now.


Modified: pypy/trunk/doc/funding/B3.0_impact.txt
==============================================================================
--- pypy/trunk/doc/funding/B3.0_impact.txt	(original)
+++ pypy/trunk/doc/funding/B3.0_impact.txt	Fri Oct  3 13:27:55 2003
@@ -17,8 +17,92 @@
 Potential impact
 ===================
 
-Python is ranked the sixth most popular computer language in the
-world, used by tens of thousands of European programmers.  Thus a new
+Python and extremely popular Very-High-Level, Object-Oriented,
+programming language.  It is always difficult to measure how many
+people are using a programming language, but of course, we try.
+Python is generally ranked the sixth most popular computer language in
+the world.  Only Java, Visual Basic, C, C++, and Perl are believed to
+have more users.  
+
+The Python FAQ, available at the python language home site of
+python.org says:
+-------------------------------------------------------
+	2.1. How many people are using Python?
+
+	Certainly thousands, and quite probably tens of thousands of users.
+	More are seeing the light each day. The comp.lang.python newsgroup is
+	very active, but overall there is no accurate estimate of the number
+	of subscribers or Python users.  Jacek Artymiak has created a Python
+	Users Counter; you can see the current count by visiting
+	http://www.wszechnica.safenet.pl/cgi-bin/checkpythonuserscounter.py
+
+	Jacek's counter has more than 43 000 registered users.
+-------------------------------------------------------
+Googling for 'python programming' gives 1,540,000 hits.  ('Python' gives
+ten million, but many of those Pythons are the actual reptiles.)
+
+Compared to the most common languages these days, C, C++, Java and
+Visual Basic, there is certainly much less 'market penetration',
+and in some niches, languages such as PHP, Perl and SQL are popular,
+but Python is vastly bigger than the more obscure languages such
+as Haskell, OCaml, Smalltalk, ADA, Ruby etc.
+
+Some statistics from python.org may be relevant.  There were 47,751
+Python 2.3 downloads in the first 10 days of September.  These are
+the 'bleeding edge' developers, who were interested in the new
+release of Python first made available at the end of August.  There
+are, of course, many more who simply wait for Python to become
+available as a Red Hat, or Debian package, or simply use the version 
+of Python that came installed with their machine when they bought it.
+
+FWIW, there are about 600,000 http visitors a month to python.org.
+About one third of them are using the documentation, which is a
+fairly good indicator that they are trying to use the language.
+Number of unique IP addresses per month is about 350,000 at this point,
+and has been rising steadily from about 250,000 this time last year.
+
+Converting this into an actual estimate of number of users is a bit
+hard, since:
+
+1) One user may use multiple machines (e.g. home & work & cafe)
+2) Many sites use a firewall that hides the actual IP (and thus combines
+   multiple users into one)
+3) Not all Python users go to python.org every month (or at least not
+   the Documentation page), because they have already dowloaded the
+   documentation for local browsing.
+
+It's probably reasonably safe to say there are at least 175,000 active
+Python users in the world.  At least half of them are in Europe, if
+O'Reilly's sales statistics for their popular books  _Learning Python_,
+_Python in a Nutshell_ and _The Python Cookbook_ are to be considered
+relevant.   Speaking of books, sales statistics of _The Essential
+Jython_, targetted at users of the Python version that compiles to
+the Java Virtual Machine indicate that there are at least 10 thousand
+Jython users worldwide.
+
+For comparison, there are something like 12 million programmers world-wide
+and roughly 50% of those use Visual Basic (according to International Data
+Corp).  In March 2002, Borland said Java had about 1.5 million developers.
+
+We intend to make a new reference version of the Python Programming
+Language, which is faster, more flexible, more extensible, and which
+gives more control to the individual programmer as to how it is
+deployed.  For instance, you will be able to build a Python
+interpreter customised for a very small amount of available memory.
+Or one with speed enhancements only possible because there is a huge
+amount of memory available.  Or a self-customising PyPy which <blah
+blah FIXME balances loads>.  We can produce Object Spaces which
+implement Aspect Oriented Programming and Design By Contract, hot new
+topics in computer science research, but which are rarely seen in
+industry because existing popular languages do not support them.  
+
+NICOLAS HELP ME WRITE STUFF HERE
+
+When we are successful, we will have an immediate, large impact as
+those 175,000 Python users will all get an improved language.
+
+
+
 implementation of the language with substantial improvements will have
 an immediate direct effect on Eropean competitiveness.  Moreover, the
 planned improvements directly target the handheld, mobile, and
@@ -196,3 +280,4 @@
 re: 'Indicate what account is taken of other national or international
 research activities.'  -- Samuele and Armin read the literature all
 the time.  What do I say?
+ppppppppppppppp
\ No newline at end of file