The Ideals of a Python Hacker (was: Poll Results)

[Peter Hansen]

Jonathan Gardner wrote:
> 
> Python and Esperanto: Esperanto was invented for being a useful, simple
> language that could be learned by almost any culture. It tried to limit the
> number of expressions for a single idea, making it difficult to express
> things that may not be understood or misunderstood. That is the same with
> Python. English and Perl (TMTOWTDI), and Esperanto and Python.

Esperanto also deliberately drew from the set of words with
the widest international recognition, to make it easier to
learn and more likely to be understood at some level even
at first glance.  Python, of course, eschews obfuscation and
favours high readability, gaining it the sometime-label
"executable pseudocode".

> > it'd also be cool to see the relative age of new pythonistas -- I suspect
> > that they're young, but this is completely unfounded.
> 
> They'd have to be. I can't seem to find a place to get paid to work in Python
> yet. I can't imagine a guy with 3 kids trying to make a living by programming
> python unless he is the rare guy that has a job in it.

Probably true.  Havens like my group (13 of us, most
using Python 95% of the time) are probably quite rare still.
I don't expect that condition to last.

Rather than wait for such a group to find/hire you, however,
you would be well advised to find ways of integrating 
Python into the work environment you are already at.  I
have yet to see a development environment in which it was
not often necessary to write little utilities to assist
in development, file massagers, and so on.  Python is
easily one of the most effective at this, and unlike 
otherwise suitable languages it will be hard for anyone
to complain the result is not maintainable.  And no
one can stop you from using it on your own machine.
(Well, I've heard of such companies too, but I can't
imagine working for one.)

-- 
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Peter Hansen, P.Eng.
peter at engcorp.com