I've watched a fair amount of Monty Python and would bell curve it around TV-14, same rating as Jay Leno, other late night TV, but such content airs Saturday Mornings too no? Or what's SpongeBob or Family Guy? In any case, there's this aura around computer languages, I'm convinced. Or lets say there isn't one. Then is marketing falling down on the job?
I've been looking into these questions lately, as I'm aware of other marketing issues, such as this "scripting language" moniker. I've seen Perl meetings where people felt under attack by this label, and who took the wise course of owning it, making it their friend. Like of course we're into "scripting" if that means being highly productive and dashing out working code to do the same job another programmer might take six weeks to get done in say FORTRAN or one of those. It's not like anyone's embarrassed for having serious Perl skills. Related journal entry: http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2009/04/whats-scripting-language.html Then along came "agile" and the business community really liked that one, stole it from FOSS bosses, repurposed it to mean whatever they wanted it to mean, like they did with "tensegrity" (I'm not mad at Carlos Castaneda though as that helped bring the right kind of anthropological thinker into our circle (he started using that word, for those who weren't tracking -- long story who CC is if that's also not on your radar, check Amazon for Don Juan books)). Anyway, you'll see "agile" all over the place, not in connection with software per se nor even eXtreme programming really, just something splashy to introduce in hotel ballrooms as a topic for management. However, given Python's "familiar" (in the Golden Compass sense) i.e. a snake called "a python", this word "agile" just sticks to it almost instinctively. Like you wouldn't think of "an agile ruby" usually; that just doesn't translate, even though Ruby is an agile enough language (too agile? mutable strings?), as is Perl. But an "agile python" is just the right image, as snakes have that "agile" way of acting, kinda like Kaa in the fun Disney film (yes, they might be slippery and slimy too, although real snakes tend to not be that way). Kevin Altis first introduced me to the term "agile" as I recall, at least in this context (I met up with him and his partner recently, out on a stroll). Where I come down in all of this is with questions like "if Python were to produce some commercials for itself, what would these look like?" I come back with something more like a vodka commercial than a child's toy commercial i.e. Python the language is definitely "for grownups" and yet runs well and comfortably on such as the XO i.e. it's very friendly to kids, in the sense of harmless and forgiving (as computer languages go -- still possible to hang yourself with too much "spaghetti code" or whatever). http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=child+python Kids around the world have pet pythons and love them. Demonizing snakes is a kind of species bigotry we hope the ape people grow out of. The snake people deserve more respect. I actually have a storyboard for a vodka commercial, developed with two actresses in mind, as train robbers in some Wild West setting. I won't give away the punch line, but it's definitely funny, you may have already guessed it, or are one of the two women, following my links (hi Hyzy). In the meantime, what I'm getting used to seeing are montage or tableau type arrangements where a national flag or company theme will predominate, giving a spin to the official logo. I've come across these examples from the Philippines lately, plus have a few more in my blog: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157...@n00/3544467917/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157...@n00/3544467795/in/photostream/ http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2008/02/pythonic-art.html Whatever people have in their collections would be of interest, but maybe you're holding back to sell on eBay or something. Kirby Urner PSF '09 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "edupython" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/edupython?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
