Guido van Rossum
Creator of the Python programming language.
Most quoted
"The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters: Beautiful is better than ugly. Explicit is better than implicit. Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. Flat is better than nested. Sparse is better than dense. Readability counts. Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules. Although practicality beats purity. Errors should never pass silently. Unless explicitly silenced. In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess. There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it. Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch. Now is better than never. Although never is often better than *right* now. If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea. If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea. Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!"
— from PEP 20 -- The Zen of Python, 1999
"The joy of coding Python should be in seeing short, concise, readable classes that express a lot of action in a small amount of clear code — not in reams of trivial code that bores the reader to death."
— from Blog post
"I'm a benevolent dictator for life, but I'm not a dictator. I'm a benevolent dictator for life, but I'm not a dictator. I'm a benevolent dictator for life, but I'm not a dictator."
— from Conference talk, 2008
All quotes by Guido van Rossum (330)
The journey of creation is as important as the destination.
To build something lasting, you must build it on solid foundations.
The power of a language lies in its ability to express ideas clearly and concisely.
We are all standing on the shoulders of giants.
The greatest challenge is not writing code, but understanding what to write.
A good tool should feel like an extension of your mind.
The pursuit of knowledge is an endless endeavor.
There is a certain poetry in well-structured algorithms.
The future of computing is about making it more accessible to everyone.
Embrace the mistakes, for they are lessons in disguise.
I decided that Python would have a very simple syntax, and that it would be easy to learn, and that it would be easy to read.
I'm not a fan of static typing. I think it adds too much ceremony.
Python is not a functional language, but it has functional features.
I'm not a big fan of 'design patterns'. I think they often lead to over-engineering.
The BDFL (Benevolent Dictator For Life) model works well for Python because I'm not a dictator.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with global variables, as long as you use them sparingly and carefully.
Python is a language for adults. You can do whatever you want, but you have to live with the consequences.
I'm not trying to make Python the fastest language. I'm trying to make it the most productive.
The biggest problem with Python 2 was that it was too successful.
Python 3 is not just Python 2 with a few changes. It's a different language.
Contemporaries of Guido van Rossum
Other Computer Sciences born within 50 years of Guido van Rossum (1956).