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Comment by Kilimanjaro | Hacker News Reader

Why Guido left? That's the question.

Speaking as an ex-Googler, when I left, Python was largely relegated to glue code, scripts, internal projects, and App Engine -- consumer-facing frontends were written in Java, and backends in C++. He probably wanted to move to a company where Python was more pervasive, and he felt like he could have more of an impact, given that he _is_ the BDFL.

+1. Google is a C/Java shop, and App Engine doesn't have a motivated team behind it (some App Engine apps make a lot of money for Google, but the GAE folks don't provide them with adequate support, much less external customers). When I stopped working on Google projects there were large parts of what would have been in the SDK provided by random teams in Creative Lab.

Why is Python being phased out?

Python wasn't phased out of consumer-facing applications because it was never in. Google has a lot of machines, but those machines receive a lot of traffic. Efficiency matters, and byte-for-byte, cycle-for-cycle, Java is more efficient than Python.

Don't ask me why Google didn't throw lots of resources at making Python more efficient like they did with JS and V8. I often wonder that myself.

they did throw a significant amount of resources at python with the creation of unladen swallow. In the end i believe it was decided (due to GIL issues, and other language design choices in python) that it was never going to match up performance wise, so unladen swallow was canceled, and Google began to move away from python.

Google doesn't run JS on its machines much. Google users run JS.

Python is a cool language but performance is performance. This is why C++ and Java will continue their domination. So in the end, assembly language and optimization experts are the king makers?

The dusty corners of Google where Python is relegated must add up to far more expansive use tha all of DropBox.

This isn't a Python move. It is a Guido move and a company environment move and a product move.

If I was a language designer looking for a change, I'd go to Yosemite and apply as park ranger. That would be a change.

But dropbox?

Would be nice to get away from it all for a few months. Being a park ranger (for awhile) would be a nice break from a high-tech lifestyle.

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