Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Python's Guido van Rossum Steps Down

posted by martyb on Friday July 13 2018, @12:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the pass-it-on dept.

canopic jug writes:

On a python developers' mailing list for the core developers, Python Committers, Benevolent Dictator for Life Guido van Rossum has announced that he is stepping down effective immediately and with out appointing a successor.

Now that PEP 572 is done, I don't ever want to have to fight so hard for a
PEP and find that so many people despise my decisions.

I would like to remove myself entirely from the decision process. I'll
still be there for a while as an ordinary core dev, and I'll still be
available to mentor people -- possibly more available. But I'm basically
giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL, and you all will be on
your own.

After all that's eventually going to happen regardless -- there's still
that bus lurking around the corner, and I'm not getting younger... (I'll
spare you the list of medical issues.)

I am not going to appoint a successor.

[...] I'll still be here, but I'm trying to let you all figure something out for
yourselves. I'm tired, and need a very long break.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Python's Guido van Rossum Steps Down | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 93 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @07:37PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @07:37PM (#708041)

    The beautiful magic is that, if you use functionality a lot, you can rewrite it in C and it runs 10x faster.

    And then someone like me will come along, rewrite your C code in Perl and it'll run either just slightly slower or at the same speed, but now has the added advantage that mere mortals will look at it and go WTF? how does that block of code do that? and so they'll then try implementing that Perl code in Python, then you'll come along and rewrite the resultant Python in C, and then I'll rewrite your resultant code again it in Perl...
    If we keep it up for a goodly number of program generations, what with all the weird transcription errors that are bound to creep in, and with programmers being the idiosyncratic characters we are, after all our trademark foibles start getting added to the rewritten code, we might accidentally come up with a spontaneously emergent 'real' AI, though I suspect that we might have to get a Perl->COBOL->Lisp->C->Haskell->Python->APL chain going for a couple of generations for some really fun 'misunderstandings' to creep into the code.

    But yes, Python is a reasonable code hacking language, I still find it easier to think in Perl though and then translate to Python, 'tis probably a generational thing...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2018, @05:28AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2018, @05:28AM (#715086)

    The beautiful magic is that, if you use functionality a lot, you can rewrite it in C and it runs 10x faster.

    And then someone like me will come along, rewrite your C code in Perl and it'll run either just slightly slower or at the same speed...

    And then someone comes along and reads your Perl code out loud in order to hammer some meaning out of it only to instead have to spend the next few years banishing all the summoned demons by rewriting the code Pythonically in Python which means it's so clean, readable, documented, understandable, thoroughly polished, and elegant that it achieves retroactive causality and slays all the monsters.

    Then someone comes along who has a kinky thing for C++ and around we go again.

    ...

    People who are convinced Python is too slow can use Cython. If they still say it's too slow it smells like PEBCAK code; the main source of all things slow.