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?)

[petercooper]

Is he really that hands off of Ruby (compared to Guido and Python?)

No, he's very much hands on in big decisions. Proof: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4849646

However, he's certainly easily persuaded by reason, consensus and results and Ruby has now split into multiple competing implementations, so "dictator" has always seemed a harsh term for him to me.

[charlieok]

I am wondering if the phrase, like so much else in the Python world, is a reference to a Monty Python sketch...

Edit:

Nevermind. Just found the answer to this question on the "Talk" page for that same wikipedia article:

“This is Guido speaking. A few months ago I found an email from 1995 in an old mailbox that I had saved since then, which was meeting notes from one of the first meetings of the Python Software Association (a precursor of the PSF). Nearly everyone present was given a jocular title, and mine was in full "First Interim benevolent Dictator for Life". Once I track this down again, can I post it on the wiki page or should I do something else first? I'm pretty sure that the titles were made up collectively there and that the term did not originate in a Monty Python skit. Most likely inventors of the term are Barry Warsaw or Ken Manheimer, who were both present at the meeting (I think) and have just thekind of mind to come up with such a term. I don't know how the term subsequently became popular -- perhaps it was used in early PSA mailings. Gvanrossum (talk) 04:21, 31 July 2008 (UTC)”

Those Talk pages sure are useful.

[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.

[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(?)

[zmitri]

Guido --> Dropbox

Matz --> Heroku

Rasmus --> WePay

[znowi]

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

[takluyver]

His Google+ post says they're "parting as the best of friends", so it doesn't sound like he's unhappy with Google. Maybe he just feels like a change?

[sliverstorm]

What is it that Dropbox offered to lure him?

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

[wyclif]

Cash. Lots of cash.

[sologoub]

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

Congrats to Dropbox!

[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.

[jrockway]

Isn't webapp2 a completely external project?

[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™.

[Kilimanjaro]

'under unusual circumstances'

Hmm...

[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-...)

[packetslave]

switch to Ruby?