RE: Java

["Steven Richman" <address@hidden>]

> From: Paul Prescod
>
> > Because the point of the whole "100% Pure Java" business was
> > specifically to fight against specific practices of Microsoft, which
> > was basically trying to sucker developers into writing their Java
> > programs in such a way that they'd only run on the Microsoft
> > implementation.
> ...
> Zope is the
> dominant application framework for Python, but Guido would help out the
> Webware or Fourthought guys if they needed something out of Python.
> CPython is the standard PVM, but Guido helps the Jython guys with their
> alternate one.

Hmm, but what do you think his reaction would be if Microsoft decided to
create its own version of Python, and subsequently started discarding
features from the original language and adding its own extensions? What if
they threw millions of marketing dollars behind their Python effort, so that
the number of Microsoft Python programmers dwarfed the number of "real"
Python programmers? What if the number of "real" Python programmers started
to diminish through defection to the critically massive Microsoft Python
community (presumably this would only happen if Microsoft Python was
available on numerous platforms). What if Microsoft Python was simply called
Python?

Wouldn't Guido be a little defensive? Might he not start a "100% Python"
initiative to keep programmers and users from putting their eggs in the
proprietary Microsoft basket?

,steven.