Thursday, November 5, 2009

Guido van Rossum talks about Python 3

Yesterday Guido van Rossum came to Berkeley to talk about Python and science.

Listening to him, I understood for the first time the importance of porting to Python 3K.

Open-source is not the same as commercial software. If Microsoft puts out Vista, and we don't see the need to change, we just don't buy it. It's not the same for Python 3K.

For Python, we benefit from the enthusiasm and - yes - enjoyment - of the Python core team. We want them to enjoy what they do, we want to share their enjoyment of something well-done, well thought out. That's how good work gets done, and it's the energy of a project.

Python 3K is important, because it's important to the Python core team. It may not yet be obvious that we need it, but we should port, because it's important for Python.