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

[Daniel Greenfeld]

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 2:59 PM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:

>> > 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 :-).

I may have not said this as well as I thought. :P

I don't follow the GNU religion but I do make Python a very good friend. :-)

I think it's wonderful that ActiveState and Enthought are providing
distributions for free. I got kickstarted on ActiveState back in 2005.
However, for people coming into the language, they should be able to
expect an easy installation from the core site regardless of their
operating system.

I'm wondering that rather than pointing all the new Windows users at
ActiveState/Enthought sites, if their distros are easier to install,
maybe the links should be to those distros. There are probably all
sorts of really good reasons why this is not possible, but if you ever
have to see 10 instructors at once waste a couple hours of
installation on 75 students you won't care about those reasons
anymore.

>>
>> 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.org
> offers -- and for very good reasons.

Just trying to find an easier path for instructors get students
kickstarted in our favorite programming language.

-- 
'Knowledge is Power'
Daniel Greenfeld
http://pydanny.blogspot.com