[Python-Dev] Re: Stability and change (original) (raw)

Alex Martelli aleax@aleax.it
Tue, 9 Apr 2002 09:52:43 +0200

On Tuesday 09 April 2002 09:41, Tim Peters wrote: ...

No, I don't think backing matters much at all to how a language becomes popular.

Ah, OK, we agree on that. Though it helped Java and VB.

C and C++ and Java have both popularity and the backing of billion-dollar companies now, and big money wants to play with big

Once something does become that popular, money flows more (again I see Java as different -- big money from the start).

lot of them just copy what the big shops do. The only reason C got into big shops is that American management is so incompetent it didn't notice what kinds of risk the hippies in the IT department were taking <0.9_ _wink>.

This is possible. It's not how it got into IBM (I remember the early times of it at IBM Research), but other managements might have been less careful or competent.

give-the-psf-a-billion-dollars-and-we'll-put-it-to-the-test-ly y'rs -

IBM invested about that much in Linux technologies after Linux had started earning huge popularity -- surely helped that popularity grow (IBM claims they're already roughly even in return from that investment through mainframe sales and consulting services -- Palmisano headed that effort, and he's IBM's #1 now, having been recently promoted).

I may be wrong, but I perceive a slowly mounting group of entrepreneurs trying to make a billion (or whatever:-) from Python -- and quite ready to feed some of that moolah back, once the moolah IS there. We'll see...

Alex