

Python's Future: A Global Perspective - jnoller
http://www.boredomandlaziness.org/2012/10/pythons-future-global-perspective.html

======
peterhunt
I love Python.

But we're seeing a fundamental shift from desktop to mobile that's the same
magnitude, if not greater, than the shift from desktop app to web. And the
Python community, by and large, doesn't seem to care.

I think Python is such an elegant language and deserves to be more than the
glue that holds together UNIX-based systems.

~~~
nacker
Well, from a Python point of view, I don't really care if everyone in the
world gets a smartphone tomorrow.

Can you really imagine a future in which people all over the worlds do not
work at desks?

Or one in which people sit at desks doing all their work on a tablet or a
smartphone?

The issue is an _ergonomic_ one, and I just don't buy the idea that the "shift
from desktop to mobile" is "the same magnitude, if not greater, than the shift
from desktop app to web".

Python will not end up as mere glue. As the article points out, there is going
to be a large supply of new Python programmers (or "non-programmers") arriving
shortly, due to educational programs and Pi type devices. Remember "Computer
Programming for Everybody", or "CP4E"?

<http://www.python.org/doc/essays/everybody/>

That was the original vision for Python, and it is slowly happening, don't
worry.

~~~
mamcx
Is not necesary to imagine it. Is happening right now. ANyway, a
tablet/smartphone _will_ approach desktop-class functionality (but on-top of
smart touch).

I wish _badly_ a way to develop* my iOS apps with python. Obj-c is improving -
the main reason I don't move to monotouch, lua or ruby -, and is necessary
transparent support to the cocoa-apis... but anyway...

P:D. With develop, with the same support or better as mono-touch, so not only
games...

~~~
dmorgan
> _Is not necesary to imagine it. Is happening right now._

Any statistics on that? Because, 10 guys and their dogs aside, I haven't
notice any office workers replacing their desktops for tablets.

Some managers and such might use them, but those were never desk bound office
workers to begin with.

~~~
mamcx
Well, if by "office workers" we rule out "managers and such" then yeah...
nobody is replacing them!

The statistics are in the open and well know by now. The industry is moving
fast & furios. The mobile space _is_ bigger than the PC/Desktop, and the ONLY
way to the dumb phones of today is up. Will not kill the desktop, and as
developer, I don't see a mass migration to mobile in the near future, but the
thing is moving in that direction -probably as mix between
tablet/desktop/smartphone...

------
lloeki
> _We also made a fairly major misstep when we failed to appropriately
> advertise the addition of directory and zipfile execution support in Python
> 2.6_

Agreed. I've been working high and low with python for years and I _did not
know_ it could do that:

> _bundle your code with all its dependencies except Python into a directory
> or zipfile and add a __main__.py file and the Python interpreter will
> execute it as if it was a script._

~~~
dagw
I've been programming python for years as well, and I had no idea. Not only
that it sounds like the perfect solution to a problem in project I'm currently
working on.

