
Welcome Guido - johns
https://tech.dropbox.com/2012/12/welcome-guido/
======
danso
Congrats to both Dropbox and Guido.

I'm ashamed to say I didn't know until TFA that Guido is _the_ BDFL...I
actually thought Linus had inspired it, though that's because he seems to be
the one who most frequently causes others to invoke it.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_Dictator_for_Life>

Also kind of funny that Matz is the only creator of a recent [*and major]
language that isn't in that Wiki list. Is he really that hands off of Ruby
(compared to Guido and Python?)

~~~
psherman
It looks like someone took the liberty to add Matz to that list since your
comment, although the reference they used is just to Ruby's wikipedia page
which makes no mention of him being a BDFL.

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kloncks
For the creators of the three top web languages of PHP, Ruby, and Python:

\- 2/3 currently work for YC companies.

\- 3/3 have at one point worked for a YC company.

That I find extremely impressive. Speaks a lot to the calibar of the YC
program. A big congrats to Dropbox too! :)

~~~
petercooper
I'm a Rubyist but I find _"the three top web languages of PHP, Ruby, and
Python"_ odd. I'd suspect C# and Java (and possibly classic ASP?) are still
more heavily used in webapps overall than Python or Ruby. A reasonable
counterargument could be that C# and Java aren't _primarily_ used for webapps,
but then neither is Python(?)

~~~
kloncks
Also a Rubyist here. Not trying to start a war.

Take "the three top web languages of [blank]" as "the three [descriptive
adjective] of [list]"

No one can argue that PHP, Ruby & Python are some top of the top languages on
the web. Didn't mean for "the" to seem as limiting as you took it.

~~~
petercooper
Isn't English fun! :-)

My interpretation wasn't entirely unfair. The "for" and double "of" result in
an ambiguous meaning. "top" is most commonly a superlative, similar to "best"
or "most popular", as in "the three best actors". But you used it in a
different sense, as in "three top actors" (though this doesn't usually work
with "the" before it.)

I do see where you're coming from though and what you intended so this is
mostly linguistic wankery for a good Friday night in ;-)

~~~
kloncks
I can appreciate that. Thanks for keeping me on my toes there ;)

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znowi
Can anyone tell the inside story? Did he not like it at Google? What is it
that Dropbox offered to lure him?

~~~
sliverstorm
_What is it that Dropbox offered to lure him?_

Well, isn't Dropbox written in Python...?

~~~
znowi
A lot of things written in Python. It's hardly an incentive enough to pluck
someone from Google.

~~~
sliverstorm
Sure, I'm not suggesting that was the only factor. Only that, I bet it played
a part in tipping the scales? :)

Also, while there are plenty of shops using Python, Dropbox is certainly one
of the ones seeing an appreciable amount of success, no?

~~~
apetresc
He worked with Python on the App Engine team as well.

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sologoub
Sad to see Guido leave the App Engine team... But this is a selfish view :-)

Congrats to Dropbox!

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gamebit07
1\. Will GO be the next Python at least inside GOOG?

2\. What seems to be happening to ndb.models in near future?

3\. Will Guido leaving Google affect webapp2 in any way?

~~~
wting
Google has been heavily pushing Go internally for a while now. They have
weekly pamphlets that they put up in bathroom stalls to educate employees.

~~~
shawn-butler
Really? Can you get some pictures of that?

~~~
rachelbythebay
I took one last month. It's one of the "learning on the loo" variety,
mentioned elsewhere.

<http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/11/17/g/>

~~~
shawn-butler
Thanks, yeah I knew of that kind of fortune-cookie silliness.

Using it to promote awareness or learning the fundamentals of a programming
language is something else entirely.

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ggordan
I'm a little curious as to why the link to " the very first lines of code" is
a link to a Google search result

~~~
shrikant
They probably copied the link from the results of a Google search, which comes
with the Extra Special Googlecruft™.

~~~
Thrymr
All the links on this page look they were copied from Google search results.
Ironic.

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Kilimanjaro
'under unusual circumstances'

Hmm...

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pulledpork
I'd love to hear more about why he'll work on at Dropbox.

------
TommyDANGerous
With the creator of Python on your team, what can't you do?

~~~
progn
With the creator of Python on your team, what can't you do?

(See [http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/final-words-on-
tail-...](http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/final-words-on-tail-
calls.html))

