python a bust?

[Paul Foley]

Re: python a bust?

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 17:59:16 -0800, Brandon J Van Every wrote:
[color=blue]
> That's where real marketing efforts "like the big boys" come in. The Python
> community can either grow the market for the language, or it can atrophize
> and be regarded as a has-been 5 years from now.[/color]

Not such a bad fate. Lisp's been *stone-cold dead* for many years
now, and it's still going strong :-)

--
You don't have to agree with me; you can be wrong if you want.

(setq reply-to
(concatenate 'string "Paul Foley " "<mycroft" '(#\@) "actrix.gen.nz> "))

[Paul Foley]

Re: python a bust?

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 17:51:49 -0800, Brandon J Van Every wrote:
[color=blue]
> A.M. Kuchling wrote:[color=green]
>>
>> There's a finite number of dollars being spent on general Python
>> books; no point in having 15 titles chasing after the same market.
>> The recent run of topic-specific books is very heartening, however.[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> Of course, one could work on *growing* the Python market, so that there's a
> perceived need for more books. There are clearly more basic Java books
> available than basic Python books, and I doubt their authors are starving.
> Also, in high tech one can compete by having "the most current" book for
> whatever langauge / API. Sure this book is regarded as a good book... if it
> was printed 3 years ago and someone else printed something 1 year ago, I'm
> going to go with the latter.[/color]

That's a pretty dumb policy, unless it's about something that's
actually likely to be out of date in 3 years. Which is unlikely for
anything of real value (XML books are out of date before the ink is
dry, of course).

When it has to do with computers, the best way to get up-to-date
information on the latest thing is likely to be to buy 30+ year old
Lisp books :-)

--
You don't have to agree with me; you can be wrong if you want.

(setq reply-to
(concatenate 'string "Paul Foley " "<mycroft" '(#\@) "actrix.gen.nz> "))

[Erik Max Francis]

Re: python a bust?

Michele Simionato wrote:
[color=blue]
> Anyway, I must congratulate you for the Python logo: ...[/color]

As far as I can tell, Brandon was not involved in any substantive way
with the creation of that logo, despite the obvious implication he made
by posting about it to get input. (Several people reasonably assumed
that he was the creator, when that is not the case.)

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
__ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && &tSftDotIotE
/ \
\__/ Never be the first to believe / Never be the last to deceive
-- Florence, _Chess_

[Emile van Sebille]

Re: python a bust?

Brandon J. Van Every:[color=blue]
> All surveys I've ever seen about language use have roughly the same[/color]
orders[color=blue]
> of magnitude, and most are much less generous to Python than 8%.
> Truthfully, people will not buy more Python books until Python is[/color]
used more[color=blue]
> prevailantly.
>
> That's where real marketing efforts "like the big boys" come in.[/color]
The Python[color=blue]
> community can either grow the market for the language, or it can[/color]
atrophize[color=blue]
> and be regarded as a has-been 5 years from now.
>[/color]

Hmmm...

That 8% sounds familiar... something about Apple's market share in
PCs 10-15 years ago or Sony's in TVs about the same time. Python
should be as much a has-been in 10-15 years.

--

Emile van Sebille
emile@fenx.com

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Re: python a bust?


"Paul Foley" <see@below.inva lid> wrote in message
news:m27k22mjwj .fsf@mycroft.ac trix.gen.nz...[color=blue]
> On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 17:51:49 -0800, Brandon J Van Every wrote:[color=green]
> > if it
> > was printed 3 years ago and someone else printed something 1 year ago,[/color][/color]
I'm[color=blue][color=green]
> > going to go with the latter.[/color]
>
> That's a pretty dumb policy, unless it's about something that's
> actually likely to be out of date in 3 years.[/color]

I'm a Windoze game developer. DirectX is *always* out of date, every year.
Not that I've yet deigned to buy a book on it, but I have browsed the
shelves occasionally. And I do note that several versions of Python have
been shipped in the past 3 years, most recently 2.3.
[color=blue]
> Which is unlikely for anything of real value[/color]

Prejudiced nonsense on your part.
[color=blue]
> (XML books are out of date before the ink is dry, of course).[/color]

As are so many things in computer programming. Throwaway APIs are de
rigeur.
[color=blue]
> When it has to do with computers, the best way to get up-to-date
> information on the latest thing is likely to be to buy 30+ year old
> Lisp books :-)[/color]

You've gotta be kidding me. Even 12 years ago, "Computer Graphics:
Principles and Practice" didn't teach texture mapping. Along came DOOM.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
- Ed Mckenzie

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Re: python a bust?


"Emile van Sebille" <emile@fenx.com > wrote in message
news:bp45ee$1ke 39f$1@ID-11957.news.uni-berlin.de...[color=blue]
>
> Hmmm...
>
> That 8% sounds familiar... something about Apple's market share in
> PCs 10-15 years ago or Sony's in TVs about the same time. Python
> should be as much a has-been in 10-15 years.[/color]

Apple almost went under and is a decided minority computing platform today.
The demand for Mac developers is way smaller than the damand for Windows
developers. Can't comment on Sony TVs, I haven't shopped for TVs lately.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Brandon's Law (after Godwin's Law):
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of
a person being called a troll approaches one RAPIDLY."

[Patrick Maupin]

Re: python a bust?

"Brandon J. Van Every" wrote:[color=blue]
> I have seen the DEC Alpha CPU torn out from under me. As far as I'm
> concerned, any hardware / language / API / OS has enemies, and those that do
> not market themselves properly are endangered. Considering that Python was
> available before Java, it is not the success story that it could or should
> be. The ugly truth of high is it's 1/3 technology and 2/3 marketing. If
> you believe otherwise, then you haven't had Intel or Microsoft hand you your
> ass yet.[/color]

I don't dispute that Python could/should do better against Java.
(I'm actually pretty agnostic on this statement.)

However, comparing hardware and software for cost/benefit is much
worse than comparing apples and oranges. There are tangible, huge
costs associated with fabbing and selling a chip. If you can only
sell a few a year it's simply not worth it. Especially if you
chip requires additional support chips which are no longer sold
because it's not worth it for them, either.

For software, open source makes the economics even sweeter. You
can often easily justify the cost of paying to incrementally
improve a package you use based solely on your own needs. For
chips the economics are _way_ different. Assume for a moment that
the Alpha was open-sourced, and you wanted to create a "modern"
version of it. Are you willing to spend a half-millon dollars
on tools, and another half-million or more on a mask set to be
able to produce a 90nm version of it which won't even work with
any of the existing support chips because the IO cells on your
fancy new chip aren't even 3V-tolerant?

Bottom line: the probability of long-term availability of and
support for Alphas tends toward 0, while the probability of long-term
availability of and support for Python tends toward 1 :)

Pat

P.S. The hardware economics _are_ currently undergoing a radical
change. If your requirements do not include cutting edge speed,
you _can_ build onesies/twosies using FPGAs for hundreds of dollars,
or even in some cases tens or hundreds of units for tens of dollars.

Or if you really only want a few fast ones, you could forego the
cost of the mask set, and "only" spend a half-million or so for tools,
and fifty to a hundred thousand for a few die on a "multi-project
wafer".

The future may hold "direct write" systems which do not require any
mask set. If these become practical, the cost of the software tools
will become a much bigger proportion of the total bill, but the number
of potential projects will skyrocket, so history and simple economics
show that competition will cause the tool prices to drop like a rock.

Once that happens, you may very well be able to build your Alpha
chips on demand :)

[Michele Simionato]

Re: python a bust?

"Brandon J. Van Every" <try_vanevery_a t_mycompanyname @yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<bp41p3$1k n97i$1@ID-207230.news.uni-berlin.de>...[color=blue]
> The ugly truth of high is it's 1/3 technology and 2/3 marketing. If
> you believe otherwise, then you haven't had Intel or Microsoft hand you your
> ass yet.[/color]

Actually I do think technology is by far the *less* important think, when
you look at the reasons behind the decisions of most firms.

I don't think a new logo will help a lot in making Python more "respectabl e",
but even if it help a bit, making Python more "visible", it would be okay.

What I think is a significate step in the right direction is the
fact that now Python 2.3 is being shipped will all the new OS X
Macintosh boxes. That's something.
If we could have Python shipping with all Windows boxes and Jython shipping
with the Java SDK, THEN Python could take over the world ...


Michele

[Michele Simionato]

Re: python a bust?

"Brandon J. Van Every" <try_vanevery_a t_mycompanyname @yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<bp401a$1k g5cr$1@ID-207230.news.uni-berlin.de>...[color=blue]
> Maxim Khesin wrote:[color=green]
> > Or perhaps Pythonistas are smarter than other people :) and buy their
> > books online.[/color]
>
> That wouldn't make me smarter. I live 5 blocks away from Barnes & Noble
> downtown. Lotsa other people are similarly well situatated according to
> where they work.[/color]

I lived < 50 meters from Barnes & Noble, still I bought my Python books
from Amazon.com. For instance "Python in a Nutshell" was available on-line
before than in the libraries, with 30% discount and free shipping. It
arrived in a couple of days.

Michele

[Andrew Dalke]

Re: python a bust?

Michele Simionato:[color=blue]
> I lived < 50 meters from Barnes & Noble, still I bought my Python books
> from Amazon.com. For instance "Python in a Nutshell" was available on-line
> before than in the libraries, with 30% discount and free shipping. It
> arrived in a couple of days.[/color]

Try also bookpool.com for technical books. PiaN is 43% off. With
3-4 day UPS ground it's $24.12, which for a book with list price of
$34.95 means it's 31% off. And you can get cheaper shipping if you
are willing to wait longer.

Andrew
dalke@dalkescie ntific.com

[Andrew Dalke]

Re: python a bust?

Brandon J. Van Every:[color=blue]
> Apple almost went under and is a decided minority computing platform[/color]
today.

I work in strange subfields by general computing standards:

Up until a year or two ago, computational chemisty was dominated by
IRIX. Linux has mostly replaced, except for some very high end
visualization (game graphics cards still have problems with lots of
triangle - they prefer textures, and the drivers for stereo displays are
still poor, esp. for stereo-in-a-window support). Though non-
computational chemisty (eg, compound registration and database
searches) is done on MS Windows, which has some quite excellent
ActiveX plug-ins for compound display. Still, one of my clients
has an SGI Octane *and* an NT box on the comp. chemists'
desktops.

Bioinformatics used to be Solaris for the server and Linux for
the development machines, but OS X has made suprising in-roads
for developer machines. (That's what I use.) Linux is replacing
Solaris for many of the servers, excepting some high-end ones
(large memory, many processors). Most of the bioinformatics
apps are web-based and don't require plug-ins so are quite
portable.

At the last bioinformatics open-source software developer meeting
I went to, everyone was running either Linux or OS X. People
booted into MS Windows mostly to check comptability.

And of course Python works wonderfully on all those platforms. :)

Andrew
dalke@dalkescie ntific.com

[Andrew Dalke]

Re: python a bust?

Brandon J. Van Every:[color=blue]
> You've gotta be kidding me. Even 12 years ago, "Computer Graphics:
> Principles and Practice" didn't teach texture mapping. Along came DOOM.[/color]

============
I have a 2nd ed. copy of Foley&van Dam (&Feiner & Hughes) which
has that title and is (c) 1990. I used for a class in that year. That's
13 years ago.

In the index under "Texture mapping" -- "See Surface Detail"
In the index under "Surface detail" -- references to pp 741-745

============ (all typos mine)
16.3 SURFACE DETAIL

Applying and of the shading models we have descrive so far to planar or
bicubic surfaces produces smooth, uniform surfaces -- in marked contrast
to most of the surface we see and feel. We discuss next a variety of
methods developed to simulate this missing surface detail.

16.3.1 Surface-Detail Polygons
...
16.3.2 Texture Mapping

As detail becomes finer and more intricate, explicit modeling with
polygons or other geometric primitives becomes less practical. An
alternative is to map an image ... a technique pioneered by Catmull
[CATM74b] and refined by Blinn and Newell [BLIN76]. This
approach is known as texture mapping or pattern mapping ...
...
The approach just described assumes square pixel geometry and
simple box filtering. It also fails to take into account pixels that
map to only part of a surface. Fiebush, Levoy, and Cook
[FEIB80] address these problems for texture-mapping polygons.
.... [It] can be quite inefficient [and we discuss other approaches
in] Section 17.4.3. Catumull and Smith's efficient technique [CATM80]
for mapping an entire texture map directly to a surface is discussed
in Excercise 17.10. Heckberg [HECK86] provides a thorough
survey of texture-mapping methods.

16.3.3 Bump Mapping
...
17.4.2 Other Pattern Mapping Techniques

[discussion of mip maps]

============

So it was discussed, with an overview of how it works and
the different approaches and pointers to literature references
for more info.

(Nit-picker? Me? Nahhh. :)

In addition, SGIs in 1990 could be bought with texture
mapping hardware, or emulated texture maps in software.
That was the 'VGXT' (or something like that) naming scheme.
"Vertex / Graph / ....? / Texture", depending on what was
done in hardware. As I recall -- memory fading after all
these years and I never was much of a hardware guy.

Andrew
dalke@dalkescie ntific.com

[Michele Simionato]

Re: python a bust?

"Andrew Dalke" <adalke@mindspr ing.com> wrote in message news:<pFltb.114 5$sb4.5@newsrea d2.news.pas.ear thlink.net>...[color=blue]
> Michele Simionato:[color=green]
> > I lived < 50 meters from Barnes & Noble, still I bought my Python books
> > from Amazon.com. For instance "Python in a Nutshell" was available on-line
> > before than in the libraries, with 30% discount and free shipping. It
> > arrived in a couple of days.[/color]
>
> Try also bookpool.com for technical books. PiaN is 43% off. With
> 3-4 day UPS ground it's $24.12, which for a book with list price of
> $34.95 means it's 31% off. And you can get cheaper shipping if you
> are willing to wait longer.
>
> Andrew
> dalke@dalkescie ntific.com[/color]

Unfortunately I am in Italy now, and we don't have Amazon.it or
something equivalent yet (I am hoping I am wrong ...)

Michele

[Alex Martelli]

Re: python a bust?

Michele Simionato wrote:
...[color=blue]
> Unfortunately I am in Italy now, and we don't have Amazon.it or
> something equivalent yet (I am hoping I am wrong ...)[/color]

No, you're not. We do have place such as gorilla.it for online books. Not
particularly good.

But this (theoretically freemarket...) government passed a law forbidding
discounts of more than 15% on books, basically to impede the chances of
supermarket chains (such as Coop) and large bookstore chains (such as
Feltrinelli), which happen to be mostly left-ish wing, to compete with
small independent bookstores, which happen to be mostly right-ish wing. As
a side effect the chance of there ever being an amazon.it was destroyed.

Try amazon.de, .fr or .uk if you're in a hurry -- I normally still order at
amazon.com, wait a while, but get a bargain despite mail costs, and good
and wide choice too.


Alex

[A.M. Kuchling]

Re: python a bust?

On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 08:51:51 GMT,
Andrew Dalke <adalke@mindspr ing.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> At the last bioinformatics open-source software developer meeting
> I went to, everyone was running either Linux or OS X. People
> booted into MS Windows mostly to check comptability.[/color]

Similar anecdotal evidence indicates the same is true for astronomers, at
least the astronomers my SO hangs out with. A friend also recently told me
of a family reunion where pretty much everyone had an Apple laptop except
him.

It makes sense -- these are technical people who want to do various
demanding jobs that can use a Unix infrastructure, but don't want to have to
wrestle Linux configuration into submission.

--amk