One day, on January 31, 1956, an ordinary little boy was born in The Hague to play one of the most important roles in the history of programming. The child was named Guido, and he has been fond of electronics and high technology since childhood. Most of his peers did not share the boy's interests, but he didn't care. In this article, we share the best moments from the interview with Guido van Rossum.
One day, on January 31, 1956, an ordinary little boy was born in The Hague to play one of the most important roles in the history of programming. The child was named Guido, and he has been fond of electronics and high technology since childhood. Most of his peers did not share the boy's interests, but he didn't care.
At the age of 10, Guido was given a kit to a young electronica, and his life has not been the same since then. Shortly thereafter, the boy became a true “nerd” and was almost completely lost to the average community. He quickly got bored in class, and instead of studying, he talked about technology with his own kind of “nerds”.
Then he developed his own calculator and suddenly became interested in programming... in the university basement, where he accidentally discovered a mainframe. This is how the story of the legendary programmer who created the famous Python language began.
What inspired you to create an entirely new programming language?
At that time, I was working as a junior programmer at CWI in the same research group as Lambert Mertens, Leo Gerts, and Stephen Pemberton. They wanted to develop an ABC language that would allow people without programming experience to quickly learn how to write computer programs. At that time, the most popular language was the completely ugly Basic, which needed to be eradicated by creating an adequate replacement for it.
However, as a result, ABC was not very successful, although it helped me gain vast experience and my own vision of many aspects. In 1986, I moved to another CWI project called Amoeba, which everyone could use simple and understandable language to work on...
And that's when you decided to create Python?
I thought, “What if we take the best of ABC and put it into a new language?” I assumed that I would spend three months developing the language, but then my work at Amoeba could accelerate significantly. It was Christmas holidays, everyone left, but I didn't have a social life back then. So I sat down at my home computer and started developing a new language.
Wikipedia says this about you: “Van Rossum is known in the Python community as a “benevolent dictator for life.” Did you have any other pseudonyms among developers and programmers?
I was sometimes called a perfectionist troll =) But mostly just Guido.
What inspires you?
Oddly enough, a job. I love programming and I always have ideas to make life better for programmers.
What advice would you give to the new generation of programmers?
Be variable. Not everyone can develop new languages or make a living as an AI expert. However, with enough effort and fully revealing your talent, you can find an area of programming to your liking.
The interview materials are available at the following links: https://www.cwi.nl/en/stories/interview-guido-van-rossum-201cid-rather-write-code-than-papers201d/
https://workspiration.org/guido-van-rossum
https://www.artima.com/articles/the-making-of-python
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