Open letter to Guido van Rossum

Guido van Rossum guido at beopen.com
Mon Jul 24 11:00:00 EDT 2000


Dan,

Thanks for your letter.  I'll try to address each point separately:

Point: Oracle. I know zit about Oracle, and I don't have an Oracle
database sitting in a corner here, so I don't know how I could decide
between the existing solutions!  (I see at least three in the Vaults
of Parnassus.)  This is an issue better brought up in the db-sig, but
last I looked the db-sig was comatose itself.  I really don't know
what else I could do!

Point: Apache module.  As far as I know this is the module currently
favored by Greg Stein, who knows the Apache internals far better than
I do.  If you have specific problems with mod_python, I suggest
sending a bug report (or better: a patch!) to its author (see
http://www.modpython.org/).

Point: MySQL.  Almost the same as Oracle, except PythonLabs team
member Jeremy Hylton knows a lot about MySQL.  I've cc'ed him.
Jeremy, can you recommend a specific MySQL extension?  We could do
something about this, e.g. include it in the core distribution (if
it's orphaned and the license allows it) or at least have a
recommendation on python.org.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://dinsdale.python.org/~guido/)

> Subject: Open letter to Guido van Rossum
> From: Dan Grassi <Dan at Grassi.org>
> To: "Guido van Rossum" <guido at beopen.com>
> Cc: <python-list at python.org>, <psa-members at python.org>,
>     <python-dev at beopen.com>
> Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 00:02:57 -0400
> 
> Hi Guido,
> 
> Well, I am rather ambivalent about 1.6.  See, I really like python and 
> want to use it at work, a dot-com --- in fact I would like it to be the 
> standard.  But I doubt that it will come to pass, there are to many 
> stumbling blocks.
> 
> First and foremost is database support as a part of the languare 
> _package_!  In particulay I need Oracle on ix86, a not uncommon database. 
>  But that is no trivial task.  Thus python fails because it can not be 
> used in a production environment that involves Oracle.
> 
> Then there is the mod-python/mod_pyapache mess, two competing versions 
> both with major problems ranging from re not working in the module 
> version of mod_python to memory leaks in both versions.  Memory leaks are 
> a major problem in a shop that is serving over 1 million pages a day.
> 
> Also in the area of divergence is the MySQL database interface modules, 
> there are at least two and I believe four current versions.
> 
> OK, but this is not python!  Well, technically that is true but these are 
> problems when one tries to use python in production!
> 
> I suggest that you, Guido van Rossum, father and inventor of Python, 
> "bless" some versions and thus get development behind single versions 
> instead of diverging from each other.  Thjis in much the same manner that 
> Linus blesses a release of Linux.
> 
> Oh well, this is just wishing upon a star. :-)  At least I do get to use 
> python on occasion, thanks.
> 
> Dan Grassi




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