Netscan and Python

[Paul Prescod]

Nelson Minar wrote:

>...
> Another random thought - folks often look at the relative lack of
> Python books vs. Perl books as a sign of Python's weakness. Isn't it
> strength? Python is so simple and the online docs are so good I never
> even thought about learning it from a book.

That is also true for me. Perl 4 is almost certainly the last language I 
learned primarily from a book and I really wanted to hurl that Camel 
book through the window.

I also think that books are a trailing indicator. The most likely person 
to buy a book is someone about to be interviewed for a Python job or 
someone who needs to maintain a large Python code base. If you are just 
playing around with Python for your own fun (as early adopters tend to 
be), you may not want to shell out.

The recent shift in this newsgroup to newbies with very specific 
problems suggests to me that the market is starting to become ready for 
specialized Python books (e.g. VB to Python, Perl to Python, Python for 
multimedia, Python algoritms for your homework, ...).

That said, Tim O'Reilly recently told me that Python books are "merely" 
flat while other book sales dropped off after the boom. Also, Learning 
Python is selling very well. I am quite confident based on a variety of 
anecdotal measures that 2003 was a big growth year for Python.

Given that Python's growth is not driven by nor capped by the growth of 
any other technology (e.g. the Internet, the Web, Linux, etc.) I expect 
continued rapid growth in 2004 and 2005.

  Paul Prescod