[Python-Dev] ANNOUNCE: A Python 2.1 release candidate!

[Eric S. Raymond]

Guido van Rossum <guido@digicool.com>:
> > CML2 has been officially accepted for inclusion in the Linux kernel, BTW.
> 
> Congratulations are in order, Eric!

It wouldn't have happened without your signoff on including the curses
module and friends in the 2.0 standard libraries.

Eric's clever plan, if you haven't guessed already, was to use Python
and the Linux kernel tree to goose the evolution of both projects,
using the requirements from each one to overcome the resistance
of the more conservative people in the other camp.  

And, while the major reason I made Python 2.x a prerequisite for CML2
was to shrink its footprint in the kernel tree, it was not absent from
my mind that doing so would put salutary pressure on the Linux distros
to upgrade to 2.x sooner than they might have otherwise.

> I guess a more positive endorsement of Python from Linus will be out
> of the question for now... :-)

For now.  But...the *next* step in the sinister master plan, after
CML2 is in, involves replacing all the Perl and awk and Tcl in the
kernel tree with Python.  The conservatives on lkml who objected to
adding Python to the build-prerequisites list are going to find that
their own arguments for mimimal external dependencies actually support
this move.

OK, so I'm going to rewrite all the (non-bash) kernel support scripts.
In the process, I'm going to make that codebase cleaner, smaller,
better documented, and more featureful.  Give me six months after CML2
goes in and I *will* have Linus and the lkml crowd making approving
noises about Python.  Count on it.

At that point, we'll have seized a major piece of the high ground, with
knock-on effects on Python's acceptance level everywhere.  Which was
*also* part of the plan, exactly dual to the effect on Linux of making 
kernel configuration so easy your Aunt Tillie could do it.

There is one implication of this scenario for Python development
itself -- that it's time to take a serious swing at eliminating our
dependency on Tcl for GUIs.  Whether we do this by adding wxPython to
the core or in some other way I don't care, but it would strengthen my
hand with the lkml crowd considerably if Python no longer had that
dependency.

Sometime in there, you and I gotta find time to PEP the Python library reorg,
too...
-- 
		<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

The danger (where there is any) from armed citizens, is only to the
*government*, not to *society*; and as long as they have nothing to
revenge in the government (which they cannot have while it is in their
own hands) there are many advantages in their being accustomed to the 
use of arms, and no possible disadvantage.
        -- Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93