[Python-ideas] Python 3000 TIOBE -3% (Massimo Di Pierro)

[Guido van Rossum]

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 2:50 PM, Daniel Greenfeld <pydanny at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Message: 1
> > Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2012 15:41:22 -0600
> > From: Massimo Di Pierro <massimo.dipierro at gmail.com>
> > To: Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com>
> > Cc: python-ideas <python-ideas at python.org>
> > Subject: Re: [Python-ideas] Python 3000 TIOBE -3%
> > Message-ID: <90C8316C-1AB0-4759-B3DF-0FB07477FF08 at gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
> >
> > First of all all the Python developers are doing an amazing job, and
> > none of the comments should be taken as a critique but only as a
> > suggestion.
>
> I completely agree with Massimo again. :-)
>
> >
> > On Feb 9, 2012, at 3:34 PM, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> > [...]
> >> In the meantime, if the python.org packages for Windows aren't up to
> >> scratch (and they aren't in many ways), *use the commercially backed
> >> ones* (or one of the other sumo distributions that are out there).
> >> Don't tell your students to grab the raw installers directly from
> >> python.org, redirect them to the free rebuilds from ActiveState or
> >> Enthought, or go all out and get them to install something like
> >> Python(X, Y).
> >
> > This is what I do now. I tell my students if they have trouble to
> > Enthought. Yet there are issues with license and 32 (free) vs 64 bits
> > (not free). Long term I do not think this what we should encourage.
>
> I think it is odd to encourage users to go to use open source distros,
> but if they have installation problems (which is really common -
> Massimo/Titus/Audrey/Zed/etc seem to back me up here) to recommend
> 'somewhere' to go to commercial-but-free distros.
>

Why is that odd?

Those distros are an integral part of the ecosystem that is enabled by open
source. I see no philosophical problems (unless you are of the GNU religion
of course -- but then you should have said FOSS instead of open source :-).


> If we should be pointing new users to ActiveState or Enthought, maybe
> we should just change the python.org default installers to what they
> provide.
>

Again, why? The commercial distributors often lag way behind what
python.orgoffers -- and for very good reasons.


> Tell you what, I'll take this matter off-list and bring it up with
> Jesse Noller and the rest of the board working on the python.org RFP.
>

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
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