[Python-ideas] Making Python more enterprise technology

[Jim Jewett]

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 11:13 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull
<stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:
> Mark Summerfield writes:

>  > If Python were to be [ISO] standardized it would become much more
>  > visible and a much safer corporate bet.

> Perl managed without it, and AFAIK there is no ISO or ANSI Java,
> either (the #3 Google hit was "Sun Drops ISO Java Standards Effort For
> Good" from 1999).  Admittedly, EMCAscript is there, but that came
> afterward, pushed by enterprises that had already adopted Javascript,
> and wanted to stop the Netscape vs. Microsoft whipsaw.

[Within BigCorp] In my experience, Perl does "suffer" for it -- it is
OK to admit that an application is already in written in Perl, and it
*may* be OK to keep it in Perl instead of translating it to Java, but
approval for a *new* application in Perl is non-trivial.

I've never seen approval for an application in ECMAScript.  I have
seen several approvals for projects in HTML, with the one-paragraph
expansion making it clear that this includes a smorgasbord of related
"standards".  These related standards always include JavaScript (only
rarely called ECMAScript), if anything is called out at all.  They
usually include CSS and XML.  In theory, python could slip in there,
but because it is a server side technology, it still triggers
questions on why the server isn't written in Java, or at least a
"Microsoft standard".

> In fact, Python not only has an excellent standard, but it has
> excellent testing of the standard, what with 4 major implementations
> aiming for conformance IIUC, plus assorted near-implementations such
> as Cython and Stackless.  I suspect that a well-run marketing campaign
> by the PSF, starting by trademarking "Standard Python" and getting
> some funding to set up a conformance testing certification program,
> would do wonders at not such great expense.

My guess is that it still wouldn't be enough -- but I'm pretty
confident that it would indeed help.

-jJ