python a bust?

"Asun Friere" <af*****@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:38**************************@posting.google.c om...

py*******@yahoo.com (John Howard) wrote in message

news:<9e**************************@posting.google. com>...

I've sent several messages over the last year asking about python -
Who teaches python? Is python losing steam? etc. I have noticed, eg,
the declinng number of books at my local borders. The last time I
visited a borders (last week), there was 1 (sic) book about python on
the shelve compared to dozens on perl & java!

If you were developing in Java or Perl maybe you would need dozens of
books. But Python is so elegant and intuitive a single one will do.
;)

It is still not a good sign. If Python is so easy, and it were also
popular, then presumably people would write problem specific books "in
Python." Do your website in Python, your database in Python, your game in
Python, your AI in Python, your laundry in Python...

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Brandon's Law (after Godwin's Law):
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of
a person being called a troll approaches one RAPIDLY."

Jul 18 '05 #4

py*******@yahoo.com (John Howard) wrote in message news:<9e**************************@posting.google. com>...

I've sent several messages over the last year asking about python -
Who teaches python? Is python losing steam? etc. I have noticed, eg,
the declinng number of books at my local borders. The last time I
visited a borders (last week), there was 1 (sic) book about python on
the shelve compared to dozens on perl & java! On my last inquiry about
who teaching python, I got two, maybe three, responses. I really want
to see python succeed! It's the best language I've seen. I see a lot
on www.python.org about development, but little on usage. I sent a
message to someone on the python site (I forget who - I know, no
excuse) about what I've done done on a site (grades, web application,
web registration, etc). No reponse. Sorry to ramble, but I wanted to
say a lot, but not have to go into a lot of detail.

Python is not backed by Microsoft or Sun, so there are less courses
and books about Python than about C#/Visual C++/Visual Basic or Java;
Perl is not backed, but it was there well before Python, and lots of
people know it and use it (even they do not necessarily love it ;), so
it has a definite historical advantage.

The present situation is clear: but then what? Should we ask Bill Gates to
adopt Python as the next Visual Basic? Or ask Sun to switch to Jython?
Or ask Larry Wall to convert to the Zen of Python?

The only thing we can do in practice is to predicate the verb of Python
to our friends, as we all do it already. Also, we can work on slick new
logos and to a restyling of the Python Website. But this will not raise
the number of Python books in the stores in a couple of weeks or months
or years. It is quite sterile to complain against things we have no real
way to control.
We can only wait and see (as in that old chinese said ...)

Michele Simionato

Jul 18 '05 #5

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
...

It is still not a good sign. If Python is so easy, and it were also
popular, then presumably people would write problem specific books "in
Python." Do your website in Python, your database in Python, your game in
Python, your AI in Python, your laundry in Python...

Yes, there's quite a few of those -- "Game Programming with Python"
(by Sean Riley) came out last month, "Game Programming With Python,
Lua, and Ruby" (by Tom Gutschmidt) should be out any day now, "Text
Processing in Python" (by David Mertz) has been out for months,
"Python Web Programming" (by Steve Holden) and "Web Programming
in Python) (by George Thiruvathukal, Thomas Christopher, John Shafaee)
even longer, and similarly for other popular "specific areas" such
as XML processing.

Still, book-publishing is an "interesting" activity -- and stocking
bookstore shelves even more so. A purely anecdotal datum I just
learned about, for example: smack in the heart of downtown Milan there
are two excellent, large bookstores which are always hotly competing.
Somebody was looking for "Python in a Nutshell" at one of them and
complained on an Italian Python list that they had no copies at all
on the shelves; somebody else replied, quite perplexed, that the
_other_ of the two bookstores had _five_ copies on _its_ shelves...

....and unless you get friendly enough with the store's personnel to
chat about such issues, it's gonna be hard to learn whether one store
is cursing and swearing for wasting such shelfspace for a book which just
is not moving, or the other is desperate for more copies of a book it
has run out of...:-)

Personally, I think my (admittedly risible:-) "googling survey" is
a more accurate gauge of a language's popularity than eyeballing the
variety or abundance of titles about it at one or a few bookstores;-)
Alex

Jul 18 '05 #6

"Michele Simionato" <mi**@pitt.edu> wrote in message

It is quite sterile to complain against things we have no real
way to control.
True... but in most cases we're making an Existential choice about our
willingness to control. We are not in fact helpless. Such is the case with
Python. If you want to actually do something about marketing Python "like
the big boys do," I encourage you to join the marketing-python forum.
http://pythonology.org/mailman/listi...rketing-python

Fair warning: you are going to hear a lot of people talking in circles. You
are only going to get things done if you are the kind of person who will
take a bull by the horns and actually get things done, even / especially
when others are yapping mindlessly and endlessly. Commercial outfits have
significant advantages over volunteer outfits when it comes to marketing:
they can order people to march in a particular direction, pay people lotsa
money to follow the orders, and fire them if they don't comply. Still...
commercial outfits are hardly immune to Dilbertism, but the high tech
landscape is dominated by companies like Microsoft who are not prone to
Dilbertism in their approaches to marketing.
We can only wait and see (as in that old chinese said ...)

Chinese philosophies, at least as received by Westerners looking for
alternatives to their high stress culture, often have the flaw of being too
Yin. The Tao is balance, not passivity.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Brandon's Law (after Godwin's Law):
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of
a person being called a troll approaches one RAPIDLY."

Jul 18 '05 #7

"Alex Martelli" <al***@aleax.it> wrote in message
news:2u*******************@news2.tin.it...

A purely anecdotal datum I just
learned about, for example: smack in the heart of downtown Milan there
are two excellent, large bookstores which are always hotly competing.

To add to anecdotes, Python is always represented and well-displayed at
Barnes & Noble in downtown Seattle. B&N is a rather mainstream bookstore,
with reasonably well stocked but mainstream tech books. I haven't bothered
to look at how many Python books are actually on the shelf, I just notice
that there's always 1 or 2 in the "look at this" display.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Brandon's Law (after Godwin's Law):
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of
a person being called a troll approaches one RAPIDLY."

Jul 18 '05 #8

Thomas Guettler

Am Thu, 13 Nov 2003 16:10:36 -0800 schrieb John Howard:

I've sent several messages over the last year asking about python -
Who teaches python? Is python losing steam? etc. I have noticed, eg,
the declinng number of books at my local borders. The last time I
visited a borders (last week), there was 1 (sic) book about python on
the shelve compared to dozens on perl & java! On my last inquiry about
who teaching python, I got two, maybe three, responses. I really want
to see python succeed! It's the best language I've seen. I see a lot
on www.python.org about development, but little on usage. I sent a
message to someone on the python site (I forget who - I know, no
excuse) about what I've done done on a site (grades, web application,
web registration, etc). No reponse. Sorry to ramble, but I wanted to
say a lot, but not have to go into a lot of detail.

Me, too. I like python very much. But most people
who use computers since 1996 use either java, perl, C or bash.

They know their language and don't want to change.

One reason could be: python is too simple. If you write
code that nobody understands (perl) you are a guru.

thomas

Jul 18 '05 #9

Anand Pillai

In the ideal "techie makes decisions" world this would have
been a good thing. But not in the real world where the Suits
make decisions in corporates.

There might have been thousands of books published in C/C++
language and they have all helped to popularize it in one
or the other way. Contrast, in the python world we have one
Alex Martelli, one Wesley Chun, one David Mertz, really
countable by hand.

There is a limit to how much a single person can evangelize
a language. Questions similar to what the O.P posted arise
from the listeners.

I would prefer to see more books on Python though they all might
be useless from a pure techie point of view. Let us have
a book on Software Projects in python for example. It might not
have the technical superiority of a Martelli book, but more
attempts like that will save the language and help the
eyeball factor, which is so important in practical marketing.

-Anand

af*****@yahoo.co.uk (Asun Friere) wrote in message news:<38**************************@posting.google. com>...

py*******@yahoo.com (John Howard) wrote in message news:<9e**************************@posting.google. com>...
I've sent several messages over the last year asking about python -
Who teaches python? Is python losing steam? etc. I have noticed, eg,
the declinng number of books at my local borders. The last time I
visited a borders (last week), there was 1 (sic) book about python on
the shelve compared to dozens on perl & java!

If you were developing in Java or Perl maybe you would need dozens of
books. But Python is so elegant and intuitive a single one will do.
;)

Jul 18 '05 #10

Alan Kennedy

[Thomas Guettler]

... most people
who use computers since 1996 use either java, perl, C or bash.

They know their language and don't want to change.

One reason could be: python is too simple. If you write
code that nobody understands (perl) you are a guru.

This a very important point, IMO.

If you've got complex hard-to-read code, then you've got power and
job-security. I have met *so many* people in this business who work
like this, consciously or sub-consciously, building their little local
empires.

Whereas, if you've written readable and maintainable code, you may be
surplus to requirements, since someone else can easily take over.

Dang! So that's why I'm not filthy rich! :-)

time-can't-be-deposited-in-the-bank-ly y'rs,

--
alan kennedy
-----------------------------------------------------
check http headers here: http://xhaus.com/headers
email alan: http://xhaus.com/mailto/alan

Jul 18 '05 #11

Erik Max Francis

"Brandon J. Van Every" wrote:

Fair warning: you are going to hear a lot of people talking in
circles. You
are only going to get things done if you are the kind of person who
will
take a bull by the horns and actually get things done, even /
especially
when others are yapping mindlessly and endlessly.

So what have you done?

--
Erik Max Francis && ma*@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
__ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && &tSftDotIotE
/ \
\__/ Then conquer we must, for our cause is just ...
-- Francis Scott Key

Jul 18 '05 #12

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

"Alex Martelli" <al***@aleax.it> wrote in message
news:2u*******************@news2.tin.it...
A purely anecdotal datum I just
learned about, for example: smack in the heart of downtown Milan there
are two excellent, large bookstores which are always hotly competing.

To add to anecdotes, Python is always represented and well-displayed at
Barnes & Noble in downtown Seattle. B&N is a rather mainstream bookstore,
with reasonably well stocked but mainstream tech books. I haven't
bothered to look at how many Python books are actually on the shelf, I
just notice that there's always 1 or 2 in the "look at this" display.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised of B&N and Borders aimed at just about
the same "audience", from what I know of both, yet it's not even all
that surprising, when comparing one large bookstore from each chain,
geographically near each other, to find that one has several books on
a given subject which the other one lacks. Buyers for specific stores
do get substantial freedom (in all bookstore chains I'm familiar with),
and whether they exercise it wisely or foolishly is another issue.
Alex

Jul 18 '05 #13

Peter Maas

Thomas Guettler schrieb:

Me, too. I like python very much. But most people
who use computers since 1996 use either java, perl, C or bash.

They know their language and don't want to change.

One reason could be: python is too simple. If you write
code that nobody understands (perl) you are a guru.

You are right. If you learn something that's hard to grasp for
others you are a guru. But in software development the tools should
add no unneccessary burden to the solution as the problems are
already hard enough.

An example of guru appeal I recently stumbled about are Perl's
Quantum::Superpositions which is really a nice idea. This module
is inspired by quantum physics but in fact applied probability
theory and predicate logic. But to say, "Hey, I just did quantum
computations in Perl" has surely more guru appeal than to say "Hey,
I just enumerated a sample space." :-)

Mit freundlichen Gruessen,

Peter Maas

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Maas, M+R Infosysteme, D-52070 Aachen, Hubert-Wienen-Str. 24
Tel +49-241-93878-0 Fax +49-241-93878-20 eMail pe********@mplusr.de
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jul 18 '05 #14

A.M. Kuchling

On 14 Nov 2003 03:19:49 -0800,
Anand Pillai <py*******@Hotpop.com> wrote:

I would prefer to see more books on Python though they all might
be useless from a pure techie point of view. Let us have

Consider two situations:

1) There are four introductory Python books. All sell X copies; the
publishers make money and are happy.
2) There are twelve introductory Python books. All sell X/3 copies;
the publishers lose money and let them go out of print. (Example: the
O'Reilly Python Standard Library book.)

There's a finite number of dollars being spent on general Python books; no
point in having 15 titles chasing after the same market. The recent run of
topic-specific books is very heartening, however.

--amk

Jul 18 '05 #15

Ben Finney

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 06:28:24 -0600, A.M. Kuchling wrote:

There's a finite number of dollars being spent on general Python books

Your calculations imply that increasing the number of books available on
a topic does not increase the amount of money spent on books on that
topic.

What evidence do you have for this?

How do you account for contrary evidence, such as the evident thought
processes of many (not least the OP of this thread) that "more books on
X => more interest in X => I should buy books on X"?

--
\ "Why was I with her? She reminds me of you. In fact, she |
`\ reminds me more of you than you do!" -- Groucho Marx |
_o__) |
Ben Finney <http://bignose.squidly.org/>

Jul 18 '05 #16

John J. Lee

py*******@Hotpop.com (Anand Pillai) writes:
[...]

There might have been thousands of books published in C/C++
language and they have all helped to popularize it in one
or the other way. Contrast, in the python world we have one
Alex Martelli, one Wesley Chun, one David Mertz, really
countable by hand.
And thank heavens for that. Most books on C++ (and the same goes for
all kinds of other technical subjects) actually do nothing other to
make it harder to find the decent books. Ironically, the good books
often seem to get published first, followed afterwards by a glut of
awful ones jumping on the bandwagon. So much for competition...

There is a limit to how much a single person can evangelize
a language. Questions similar to what the O.P posted arise
from the listeners.

I would prefer to see more books on Python though they all might
be useless from a pure techie point of view. Let us have
a book on Software Projects in python for example. It might not
have the technical superiority of a Martelli book, but more
attempts like that will save the language and help the
eyeball factor, which is so important in practical marketing.

[...]

.... but I can see where you're coming from.
John

Jul 18 '05 #17

smarter_than_you

"Brandon J. Van Every" <tr***************************@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<bp*************@ID-207230.news.uni-berlin.de>...

Chinese philosophies, at least as received by Westerners looking for
alternatives to their high stress culture, often have the flaw of being too
Yin. The Tao is balance, not passivity.

Sun Tzu ("The Art of War") was Chinese.

Jul 18 '05 #18

"Brandon J. Van Every" <tr***************************@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<bp*************@ID-207230.news.uni-berlin.de>...

True... but in most cases we're making an Existential choice about our
willingness to control. We are not in fact helpless. Such is the case with
Python. If you want to actually do something about marketing Python "like
the big boys do," I encourage you to join the marketing-python forum.
http://pythonology.org/mailman/listi...rketing-python

Unfortunately, I am not a kinda of marketing person ...

Anyway, I must congratulate you for the Python logo: it is ways better
than any other Python logo I have seen (so far) and it looks really
professional. The font is so and so, but the stylized snake is perfect,
and very original.

We can only wait and see (as in that old chinese said ...)

Chinese philosophies, at least as received by Westerners looking for
alternatives to their high stress culture, often have the flaw of being too
Yin. The Tao is balance, not passivity.

Yes, but the idea I had in mind was something like "relax, we are not
in war against Java or C# or anything else, let us wait for a bit before
complaining about Python dead". OTOH, if people think that Python is an
endangered species and want to start a promotional campaign to save it,
I am certainly not opposed. Anyway, one must be realistic and do not
expect that Python will replace Java any soon, just because the way
the world is. So, I do promote Python, but the pacific way ;)

Michele

P.S. in Italian "pacific" means "peaceful" but also, referred to a person,
somebody with a slow pace, and/or somebody who doesn't worry too much
(like me ;) not sure if the English word has the same connotation, but
anyway I meant that there is no hurry, as I don't see any sign of
Python disappearing soon, I see just the opposite actually ;)

Jul 18 '05 #19

Maxim Khesin

Or perhaps Pythonistas are smarter than other people :) and buy their
books online.

Jul 18 '05 #20

Christopher Mahan

"Thomas Guettler" <gu*****@thomas-guettler.de> wrote in message

Me, too. I like python very much. But most people
who use computers since 1996 use either java, perl, C or bash.

They know their language and don't want to change.

One reason could be: python is too simple. If you write
code that nobody understands (perl) you are a guru. thomas

I think also that when people get paid per hour, the longer the
project, the more they make.

Subconsiously I think, people don't necessarily want computer
languages that are written fast.

Now, if you're a consultant and bill "for the job" then in fact it is
in your best interest to use a language that can be written quickly to
do a particular set of tasks.

Chris Mahan

Jul 18 '05 #21

Emile van Sebille

Christopher Mahan:

Now, if you're a consultant and bill "for the job" then in fact it is in your best interest to use a language that can be written quickly to do a particular set of tasks.

Fifteen years ago I had a job where I lifted county court seals and
clerk signatures from originals and prepared gifs from them. It
involved a fair amount of effort to clean things up and eventually I
got it down to about 2 hours per image. When I switched from billing
by the hour to simply 'billing by the job' and they saw what they were
paying per image, they brought the job in house.

Sometimes-it-works-and-sometimes-it-don't-ly y'rs,

--

Emile van Sebille
em***@fenx.com

Jul 18 '05 #22

Steve Lamb

On 2003-11-14, Ben Finney <bi****************@and-benfinney-does-too.id.au>
wrote:

What evidence do you have for this?
What evidence do you have to the contrary?
How do you account for contrary evidence, such as the evident thought
processes of many (not least the OP of this thread) that "more books on X =>
more interest in X => I should buy books on X"?

Let me counter then. I recently got a new job which, if I were to perform
to the expectations of the people who hired me, required me to learn two new
technologies I have been looking at for a while but have not yet touched. PHP
and MySQL. I spent 2 hours in the local Borders and B&N looking at PHP,
MySQL, PHP+MySQL books. After looking at about a little over a dozen books
total guess how many I bought?

2. _Core PHP Programming_ and _Core MySQL_. From what I could tell in
just a quick riffle through the pages those offered the best format for me to
learn from as well as use as a reference book.

I also will not be buying any more books on PHP or MySQL for a while.
Why? Because those, along with Sill's QMail book, topped $120 US Dollars.
Those books certainly did compete for my dollars and ~12 of them lost out.

For the record Barnes & Noble had about 6 Python book on their shelves and
Borders about a dozen. I didn't pick up any of them even though the only
Python book in my posession right now is Beazley's _Python Essential
Reference_ which I bought several years ago. Why? Because I know v2.3 is
just coming out and didn't want to get a book on v2.2 when the v1.5.2 book has
held me in good stead thusfar.

Now that we've presented anecdotal evidence both both sides care to share
why you think that your way of thinking is the predominant one; IE more books
on the shelf means you're going to buy more books on that topic?

--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------

Jul 18 '05 #23

Maxim Khesin wrote:

Or perhaps Pythonistas are smarter than other people :) and buy their
books online.

That wouldn't make me smarter. I live 5 blocks away from Barnes & Noble
downtown. Lotsa other people are similarly well situatated according to
where they work.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Brandon's Law (after Godwin's Law):
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of
a person being called a troll approaches one RAPIDLY."

Jul 18 '05 #24

A.M. Kuchling wrote:

There's a finite number of dollars being spent on general Python
books; no point in having 15 titles chasing after the same market.
The recent run of topic-specific books is very heartening, however.

Of course, one could work on *growing* the Python market, so that there's a
perceived need for more books. There are clearly more basic Java books
available than basic Python books, and I doubt their authors are starving.
Also, in high tech one can compete by having "the most current" book for
whatever langauge / API. Sure this book is regarded as a good book... if it
was printed 3 years ago and someone else printed something 1 year ago, I'm
going to go with the latter.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Brandon's Law (after Godwin's Law):
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of
a person being called a troll approaches one RAPIDLY."

Jul 18 '05 #25

Ben Finney

On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 00:34:47 -0000, Steve Lamb wrote:

On 2003-11-14, Ben Finney wrote:
On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 06:28:24 -0600, A.M. Kuchling wrote:
There's a finite number of dollars being spent on general Python
books What evidence do you have for this?

What evidence do you have to the contrary?

The one who presents the theorem is the one on whom the burden of proof
falls. Messrs Kuchling presented something as fact, without supporting
evidence nor accounting of contrary evidence.
why you think that your way of thinking is the predominant one; IE
more books on the shelf means you're going to buy more books on that
topic?

Thanks, I don't need any straw men. I never said this way of thinking
was mine, nor that it was predominant.

--
\ "To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no |
`\ choreography, and the dancers hit each other." -- Jack Handey |
_o__) |
Ben Finney <http://bignose.squidly.org/>

Jul 18 '05 #26

Steve Lamb wrote:

Now that we've presented anecdotal evidence both both sides care
to share why you think that your way of thinking is the predominant
one; IE more books on the shelf means you're going to buy more books
on that topic?

Steve, an important question is what programmer demographic you represent,
vs. how many demographics can be sold to. I, for instance, will never buy a
big-picture big-print tech manual, I don't care what subject it's on. In
fact, as years have progressed I'm unlikely to buy any books at all. When I
did so in the past, my tastes tended towards the exceedingly dense, dry, and
academic. I'm fully aware, however, that "Learn C++ in 21 days" and "C++
for Dummies" do sell copies to somebody. Somebody with different needs and
a different brain than my own.

As for total volume of books, I seriously doubt that you can sell more
Python books simply by having more of such books available. You have to
look at the strategic realities: according to one survey I saw recently,
Java is being used by 53% of people on projects, C# is 25%, Python is 8%.
All surveys I've ever seen about language use have roughly the same orders
of magnitude, and most are much less generous to Python than 8%.
Truthfully, people will not buy more Python books until Python is used more
prevailantly.

That's where real marketing efforts "like the big boys" come in. The Python
community can either grow the market for the language, or it can atrophize
and be regarded as a has-been 5 years from now.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Brandon's Law (after Godwin's Law):
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of
a person being called a troll approaches one RAPIDLY."

Jul 18 '05 #27

John J. Lee wrote:

py*******@Hotpop.com (Anand Pillai) writes:
[...]
There might have been thousands of books published in C/C++
language and they have all helped to popularize it in one
or the other way. Contrast, in the python world we have one
Alex Martelli, one Wesley Chun, one David Mertz, really
countable by hand.

And thank heavens for that. Most books on C++ (and the same goes for
all kinds of other technical subjects) actually do nothing other to
make it harder to find the decent books. Ironically, the good books
often seem to get published first, followed afterwards by a glut of
awful ones jumping on the bandwagon. So much for competition...

But the questions are:
1) do the "crappy" books sell briskly to someone?
2) is a plethora of books a healthy sign for a language?

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Brandon's Law (after Godwin's Law):
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of
a person being called a troll approaches one RAPIDLY."

Jul 18 '05 #28

Michele Simionato wrote:

"Brandon J. Van Every" <tr***************************@yahoo.com>
wrote in message
news:<bp*************@ID-207230.news.uni-berlin.de>...

True... but in most cases we're making an Existential choice about
our
willingness to control. We are not in fact helpless. Such is the
case with Python.

If you want to actually do something about marketing Python "like
the big boys do," I encourage you to join the marketing-python forum.
http://pythonology.org/mailman/listi...rketing-python
Unfortunately, I am not a kinda of marketing person ...

Well, this is less a matter of having some official qualification (I
certainly don't) than having a head for it, and for getting things done. I
think in my case, the pressure of running my own business and being
responsible for all of my own missteps has made me better able to see when
some avenues of discussion are a complete waste of time.
Anyway, I must congratulate you for the Python logo:
I'll take that as collective congratulation for the py-design-forum, and a
specific accolade for Tim Parkin, the designer. I could not possibly take
the congratulation specifically! My main role has been to light a match
under other people's toes and force people to make decisions instead of
hemming and hawing endlessly. I tried my hand at "graphic designer wannabe"
and offered a couple of shaky concepts of my own. By doing so, I forced
others with more skill to put up or shut up. Once real graphic designers
started putting up, we got some results. Now, if only we can get PSF to see
the wisdom of progress... we haven't secured their buy-in for this logo yet.
it is ways better
than any other Python logo I have seen (so far) and it looks really
professional. The font is so and so, but the stylized snake is
perfect, and very original.

I think we have consensus that the font needs improvement, even from the
designer. He didn't want to spend lotsa time angsting about the font if we
didn't even have PSF's buy-in about the logo itself yet. A wise move on his
part: PSF has a lot of trouble cutting the chase and shipping things in the
art dept. The web redesign process, for instance, has been interminable.

We can only wait and see (as in that old chinese said ...)

Chinese philosophies, at least as received by Westerners looking for
alternatives to their high stress culture, often have the flaw of
being too Yin. The Tao is balance, not passivity.

Yes, but the idea I had in mind was something like "relax, we are not
in war against Java or C# or anything else, let us wait for a bit
before complaining about Python dead".

I have seen the DEC Alpha CPU torn out from under me. As far as I'm
concerned, any hardware / language / API / OS has enemies, and those that do
not market themselves properly are endangered. Considering that Python was
available before Java, it is not the success story that it could or should
be. The ugly truth of high is it's 1/3 technology and 2/3 marketing. If
you believe otherwise, then you haven't had Intel or Microsoft hand you your
ass yet.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Brandon's Law (after Godwin's Law):
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of
a person being called a troll approaches one RAPIDLY."

Jul 18 '05 #29

Christopher Mahan wrote:

I think also that when people get paid per hour, the longer the
project, the more they make.

Subconsiously I think, people don't necessarily want computer
languages that are written fast.

Now, if you're a consultant and bill "for the job" then in fact it is
in your best interest to use a language that can be written quickly to
do a particular set of tasks.

Or a business owner. I want more productivity because when I write my
games, it's *my* money I'm losing. Also as a consultant I think better
tools is a way to manage project risk. You've got so many other ways for a
client to waste your time, to put you behind schedule, you'd like to have
your tools not be an additional way for the project to blow up in your face.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Brandon's Law (after Godwin's Law):
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of
a person being called a troll approaches one RAPIDLY."

Jul 18 '05 #30

Paul Foley

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 17:59:16 -0800, Brandon J Van Every wrote:

That's where real marketing efforts "like the big boys" come in. The Python
community can either grow the market for the language, or it can atrophize
and be regarded as a has-been 5 years from now.

Not such a bad fate. Lisp's been *stone-cold dead* for many years
now, and it's still going strong :-)

--
You don't have to agree with me; you can be wrong if you want.

(setq reply-to
(concatenate 'string "Paul Foley " "<mycroft" '(#\@) "actrix.gen.nz>"))

Jul 18 '05 #31

Paul Foley

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 17:51:49 -0800, Brandon J Van Every wrote:

A.M. Kuchling wrote:

There's a finite number of dollars being spent on general Python
books; no point in having 15 titles chasing after the same market.
The recent run of topic-specific books is very heartening, however.
Of course, one could work on *growing* the Python market, so that there's a
perceived need for more books. There are clearly more basic Java books
available than basic Python books, and I doubt their authors are starving.
Also, in high tech one can compete by having "the most current" book for
whatever langauge / API. Sure this book is regarded as a good book... if it
was printed 3 years ago and someone else printed something 1 year ago, I'm
going to go with the latter.

That's a pretty dumb policy, unless it's about something that's
actually likely to be out of date in 3 years. Which is unlikely for
anything of real value (XML books are out of date before the ink is
dry, of course).

When it has to do with computers, the best way to get up-to-date
information on the latest thing is likely to be to buy 30+ year old
Lisp books :-)

--
You don't have to agree with me; you can be wrong if you want.

(setq reply-to
(concatenate 'string "Paul Foley " "<mycroft" '(#\@) "actrix.gen.nz>"))

Jul 18 '05 #32

Erik Max Francis

Michele Simionato wrote:

Anyway, I must congratulate you for the Python logo: ...

As far as I can tell, Brandon was not involved in any substantive way
with the creation of that logo, despite the obvious implication he made
by posting about it to get input. (Several people reasonably assumed
that he was the creator, when that is not the case.)

--
Erik Max Francis && ma*@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
__ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && &tSftDotIotE
/ \
\__/ Never be the first to believe / Never be the last to deceive
-- Florence, _Chess_

Jul 18 '05 #33

Emile van Sebille

Brandon J. Van Every:

All surveys I've ever seen about language use have roughly the same orders of magnitude, and most are much less generous to Python than 8%.
Truthfully, people will not buy more Python books until Python is used more prevailantly.

That's where real marketing efforts "like the big boys" come in. The Python community can either grow the market for the language, or it can atrophize and be regarded as a has-been 5 years from now.

Hmmm...

That 8% sounds familiar... something about Apple's market share in
PCs 10-15 years ago or Sony's in TVs about the same time. Python
should be as much a has-been in 10-15 years.

--

Emile van Sebille
em***@fenx.com

Jul 18 '05 #34

"Paul Foley" <se*@below.invalid> wrote in message
news:m2************@mycroft.actrix.gen.nz...

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 17:51:49 -0800, Brandon J Van Every wrote:
if it
was printed 3 years ago and someone else printed something 1 year ago, I'm going to go with the latter.
That's a pretty dumb policy, unless it's about something that's
actually likely to be out of date in 3 years.

I'm a Windoze game developer. DirectX is *always* out of date, every year.
Not that I've yet deigned to buy a book on it, but I have browsed the
shelves occasionally. And I do note that several versions of Python have
been shipped in the past 3 years, most recently 2.3.
Which is unlikely for anything of real value
Prejudiced nonsense on your part.
(XML books are out of date before the ink is dry, of course).
As are so many things in computer programming. Throwaway APIs are de
rigeur.
When it has to do with computers, the best way to get up-to-date
information on the latest thing is likely to be to buy 30+ year old
Lisp books :-)

You've gotta be kidding me. Even 12 years ago, "Computer Graphics:
Principles and Practice" didn't teach texture mapping. Along came DOOM.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
- Ed Mckenzie

Jul 18 '05 #35

"Emile van Sebille" <em***@fenx.com> wrote in message
news:bp*************@ID-11957.news.uni-berlin.de...

Hmmm...

That 8% sounds familiar... something about Apple's market share in
PCs 10-15 years ago or Sony's in TVs about the same time. Python
should be as much a has-been in 10-15 years.

Apple almost went under and is a decided minority computing platform today.
The demand for Mac developers is way smaller than the damand for Windows
developers. Can't comment on Sony TVs, I haven't shopped for TVs lately.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Brandon's Law (after Godwin's Law):
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of
a person being called a troll approaches one RAPIDLY."

Jul 18 '05 #36

Patrick Maupin

"Brandon J. Van Every" wrote:

I have seen the DEC Alpha CPU torn out from under me. As far as I'm
concerned, any hardware / language / API / OS has enemies, and those that do
not market themselves properly are endangered. Considering that Python was
available before Java, it is not the success story that it could or should
be. The ugly truth of high is it's 1/3 technology and 2/3 marketing. If
you believe otherwise, then you haven't had Intel or Microsoft hand you your
ass yet.

I don't dispute that Python could/should do better against Java.
(I'm actually pretty agnostic on this statement.)

However, comparing hardware and software for cost/benefit is much
worse than comparing apples and oranges. There are tangible, huge
costs associated with fabbing and selling a chip. If you can only
sell a few a year it's simply not worth it. Especially if you
chip requires additional support chips which are no longer sold
because it's not worth it for them, either.

For software, open source makes the economics even sweeter. You
can often easily justify the cost of paying to incrementally
improve a package you use based solely on your own needs. For
chips the economics are _way_ different. Assume for a moment that
the Alpha was open-sourced, and you wanted to create a "modern"
version of it. Are you willing to spend a half-millon dollars
on tools, and another half-million or more on a mask set to be
able to produce a 90nm version of it which won't even work with
any of the existing support chips because the IO cells on your
fancy new chip aren't even 3V-tolerant?

Bottom line: the probability of long-term availability of and
support for Alphas tends toward 0, while the probability of long-term
availability of and support for Python tends toward 1 :)

Pat

P.S. The hardware economics _are_ currently undergoing a radical
change. If your requirements do not include cutting edge speed,
you _can_ build onesies/twosies using FPGAs for hundreds of dollars,
or even in some cases tens or hundreds of units for tens of dollars.

Or if you really only want a few fast ones, you could forego the
cost of the mask set, and "only" spend a half-million or so for tools,
and fifty to a hundred thousand for a few die on a "multi-project
wafer".

The future may hold "direct write" systems which do not require any
mask set. If these become practical, the cost of the software tools
will become a much bigger proportion of the total bill, but the number
of potential projects will skyrocket, so history and simple economics
show that competition will cause the tool prices to drop like a rock.

Once that happens, you may very well be able to build your Alpha
chips on demand :)

Jul 18 '05 #37

"Brandon J. Van Every" <tr***************************@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<bp*************@ID-207230.news.uni-berlin.de>...

The ugly truth of high is it's 1/3 technology and 2/3 marketing. If
you believe otherwise, then you haven't had Intel or Microsoft hand you your
ass yet.

Actually I do think technology is by far the *less* important think, when
you look at the reasons behind the decisions of most firms.

I don't think a new logo will help a lot in making Python more "respectable",
but even if it help a bit, making Python more "visible", it would be okay.

What I think is a significate step in the right direction is the
fact that now Python 2.3 is being shipped will all the new OS X
Macintosh boxes. That's something.
If we could have Python shipping with all Windows boxes and Jython shipping
with the Java SDK, THEN Python could take over the world ...
Michele

Jul 18 '05 #38

"Brandon J. Van Every" <tr***************************@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<bp*************@ID-207230.news.uni-berlin.de>...

Maxim Khesin wrote:
Or perhaps Pythonistas are smarter than other people :) and buy their
books online.

That wouldn't make me smarter. I live 5 blocks away from Barnes & Noble
downtown. Lotsa other people are similarly well situatated according to
where they work.

I lived < 50 meters from Barnes & Noble, still I bought my Python books
from Amazon.com. For instance "Python in a Nutshell" was available on-line
before than in the libraries, with 30% discount and free shipping. It
arrived in a couple of days.

Michele

Jul 18 '05 #39

Andrew Dalke

Michele Simionato:

I lived < 50 meters from Barnes & Noble, still I bought my Python books
from Amazon.com. For instance "Python in a Nutshell" was available on-line
before than in the libraries, with 30% discount and free shipping. It
arrived in a couple of days.

Try also bookpool.com for technical books. PiaN is 43% off. With
3-4 day UPS ground it's $24.12, which for a book with list price of
$34.95 means it's 31% off. And you can get cheaper shipping if you
are willing to wait longer.

Andrew
da***@dalkescientific.com

Jul 18 '05 #40

Andrew Dalke

Brandon J. Van Every:

Apple almost went under and is a decided minority computing platform

today.

I work in strange subfields by general computing standards:

Up until a year or two ago, computational chemisty was dominated by
IRIX. Linux has mostly replaced, except for some very high end
visualization (game graphics cards still have problems with lots of
triangle - they prefer textures, and the drivers for stereo displays are
still poor, esp. for stereo-in-a-window support). Though non-
computational chemisty (eg, compound registration and database
searches) is done on MS Windows, which has some quite excellent
ActiveX plug-ins for compound display. Still, one of my clients
has an SGI Octane *and* an NT box on the comp. chemists'
desktops.

Bioinformatics used to be Solaris for the server and Linux for
the development machines, but OS X has made suprising in-roads
for developer machines. (That's what I use.) Linux is replacing
Solaris for many of the servers, excepting some high-end ones
(large memory, many processors). Most of the bioinformatics
apps are web-based and don't require plug-ins so are quite
portable.

At the last bioinformatics open-source software developer meeting
I went to, everyone was running either Linux or OS X. People
booted into MS Windows mostly to check comptability.

And of course Python works wonderfully on all those platforms. :)

Andrew
da***@dalkescientific.com

Jul 18 '05 #41

Andrew Dalke

Brandon J. Van Every:

You've gotta be kidding me. Even 12 years ago, "Computer Graphics:
Principles and Practice" didn't teach texture mapping. Along came DOOM.

============
I have a 2nd ed. copy of Foley&van Dam (&Feiner & Hughes) which
has that title and is (c) 1990. I used for a class in that year. That's
13 years ago.

In the index under "Texture mapping" -- "See Surface Detail"
In the index under "Surface detail" -- references to pp 741-745

============ (all typos mine)
16.3 SURFACE DETAIL

Applying and of the shading models we have descrive so far to planar or
bicubic surfaces produces smooth, uniform surfaces -- in marked contrast
to most of the surface we see and feel. We discuss next a variety of
methods developed to simulate this missing surface detail.

16.3.1 Surface-Detail Polygons
...
16.3.2 Texture Mapping

As detail becomes finer and more intricate, explicit modeling with
polygons or other geometric primitives becomes less practical. An
alternative is to map an image ... a technique pioneered by Catmull
[CATM74b] and refined by Blinn and Newell [BLIN76]. This
approach is known as texture mapping or pattern mapping ...
...
The approach just described assumes square pixel geometry and
simple box filtering. It also fails to take into account pixels that
map to only part of a surface. Fiebush, Levoy, and Cook
[FEIB80] address these problems for texture-mapping polygons.
.... [It] can be quite inefficient [and we discuss other approaches
in] Section 17.4.3. Catumull and Smith's efficient technique [CATM80]
for mapping an entire texture map directly to a surface is discussed
in Excercise 17.10. Heckberg [HECK86] provides a thorough
survey of texture-mapping methods.

16.3.3 Bump Mapping
...
17.4.2 Other Pattern Mapping Techniques

[discussion of mip maps]

============

So it was discussed, with an overview of how it works and
the different approaches and pointers to literature references
for more info.

(Nit-picker? Me? Nahhh. :)

In addition, SGIs in 1990 could be bought with texture
mapping hardware, or emulated texture maps in software.
That was the 'VGXT' (or something like that) naming scheme.
"Vertex / Graph / ....? / Texture", depending on what was
done in hardware. As I recall -- memory fading after all
these years and I never was much of a hardware guy.

Andrew
da***@dalkescientific.com

Jul 18 '05 #42

"Andrew Dalke" <ad****@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:<pF**************@newsread2.news.pas.earthlin k.net>...

Michele Simionato:
I lived < 50 meters from Barnes & Noble, still I bought my Python books
from Amazon.com. For instance "Python in a Nutshell" was available on-line
before than in the libraries, with 30% discount and free shipping. It
arrived in a couple of days.

Try also bookpool.com for technical books. PiaN is 43% off. With
3-4 day UPS ground it's $24.12, which for a book with list price of
$34.95 means it's 31% off. And you can get cheaper shipping if you
are willing to wait longer.

Andrew
da***@dalkescientific.com

Unfortunately I am in Italy now, and we don't have Amazon.it or
something equivalent yet (I am hoping I am wrong ...)

Michele

Jul 18 '05 #43

Michele Simionato wrote:
...

Unfortunately I am in Italy now, and we don't have Amazon.it or
something equivalent yet (I am hoping I am wrong ...)

No, you're not. We do have place such as gorilla.it for online books. Not
particularly good.

But this (theoretically freemarket...) government passed a law forbidding
discounts of more than 15% on books, basically to impede the chances of
supermarket chains (such as Coop) and large bookstore chains (such as
Feltrinelli), which happen to be mostly left-ish wing, to compete with
small independent bookstores, which happen to be mostly right-ish wing. As
a side effect the chance of there ever being an amazon.it was destroyed.

Try amazon.de, .fr or .uk if you're in a hurry -- I normally still order at
amazon.com, wait a while, but get a bargain despite mail costs, and good
and wide choice too.
Alex

Jul 18 '05 #44

A.M. Kuchling

On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 08:51:51 GMT,
Andrew Dalke <ad****@mindspring.com> wrote:

At the last bioinformatics open-source software developer meeting
I went to, everyone was running either Linux or OS X. People
booted into MS Windows mostly to check comptability.

Similar anecdotal evidence indicates the same is true for astronomers, at
least the astronomers my SO hangs out with. A friend also recently told me
of a family reunion where pretty much everyone had an Apple laptop except
him.

It makes sense -- these are technical people who want to do various
demanding jobs that can use a Unix infrastructure, but don't want to have to
wrestle Linux configuration into submission.

--amk

Jul 18 '05 #45

Anand Pillai

I think my O.P has been taken out of context here.

Python is a great language, it is flexible, agile,
great for newbies, good for experts at the samt time,
allows for prototyping blah blah... I am sure everyone
in this group will tend to agree with most of these
oft repeated statements.

My question was that, "If it is such a great language, why
it is not getting the recognition it deserves"?

Probably there is a need to change the attitude of Pythonistas
about their language. It needs to probably come out from that
"high pedestal" where books get written only if there is a definite
need percieved. One way to do that is may be, just may be to
actually create market for new python books.

The "right" way to do this is by synergy. First we need to popularize
the language, get the website in right shape, evangelize it,
get it accepted by the Suits, then it will get accepted by the Suits
as their language of choice in s/w projects and in due course
every Java or C++ guy will be buying new Python books from the
bookstall. Ah, but this topic often gets discussed again and again
and I was wondering if there is a tendency to come full circle
starting from the book topic, without really achieving anything.

In fact, I have been commisioned to write a series of articles on
Python in a popular computer magazine in India. I am trying to do what
I can to evangelize the language in and around where I live, as I
percieve potential in it, and perhaps potential for me to grow with
the language.

There is no way AFAIK any index to measure the popularity of a
language
by the plethora of books written on it. But it is common sense that
if there are many authors writing books on a language it has got to be
popular. Doesn't popularity mean the number of people interested in
a certain thing? So if 'n' guys are writing books on Python and
'n*100' guys on C++, I would say, not as a techie, but as an average
person, that C++ is more popular than Python.

There was a company called Wrox writing P2P (Programmer 2 Programmer)
books
on many technical topics. I think it got absorbed by Wiley recently.
Their choice of topics was "Popular" languages and technologies used
by
practicing software developers. I never saw a Python book in their
stable.
Of course, again dont start a thread about the technical perfection of
Wrox
books, since I know that their style & content cannot be compared with
an O'reilly nutshell book. But as again, I am not talking about
anything regarding
the "greatness" of the language, but just simple arithmetic.

-Anand

"Brandon J. Van Every" <tr***************************@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<bp*************@ID-207230.news.uni-berlin.de>...

John J. Lee wrote:
py*******@Hotpop.com (Anand Pillai) writes:
[...]
There might have been thousands of books published in C/C++
language and they have all helped to popularize it in one
or the other way. Contrast, in the python world we have one
Alex Martelli, one Wesley Chun, one David Mertz, really
countable by hand.

And thank heavens for that. Most books on C++ (and the same goes for
all kinds of other technical subjects) actually do nothing other to
make it harder to find the decent books. Ironically, the good books
often seem to get published first, followed afterwards by a glut of
awful ones jumping on the bandwagon. So much for competition...

But the questions are:
1) do the "crappy" books sell briskly to someone?
2) is a plethora of books a healthy sign for a language?

Jul 18 '05 #46

Anand Pillai wrote:
...

There was a company called Wrox writing P2P (Programmer 2 Programmer)
books on many technical topics. I think it got absorbed by Wiley recently.
They had gone bust, and the brand has been purchased.
Their choice of topics was "Popular" languages and technologies used
by practicing software developers. I never saw a Python book in their
stable.
Of course, again dont start a thread about the technical perfection of
Wrox books, since I know that their style & content cannot be compared
with an O'reilly nutshell book.
You're wrong: some of their books were truly excellent. Short of Don Box's
Addison-Wesley bible, they had the best on COM, and the best in particular
on ATL, the best way to do COM in Visual C++. Of course, many others
(while still technically OK) were "me too"'s in crowded fields.
But as again, I am not talking about
anything regarding
the "greatness" of the language, but just simple arithmetic.

Simple arithmetic tells us Wrox went bust (despite having some excellent
books and a very vast selection). I'm not sure how you plan to use this to
convince other publishers to put out plenty of "me too's" technically decent
but mostly undistinguished books in crowded fields.
Alex

Jul 18 '05 #47