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)
Python is more than just a programming language; it's a philosophy.
I'm proud of what we've built together.
The future of computing is in high-level languages.
I've always valued clarity over cleverness.
The community is the engine of Python's success.
My role has always been to guide, not to dictate.
Python should be a joy to write, not a chore.
I'm an optimist at heart.
The most important thing is to solve real problems.
I've always tried to foster a welcoming environment.
I'm a firm believer in continuous improvement.
The beauty of Python is its versatility.
I've always tried to make Python accessible to everyone.
The best ideas often come from unexpected places.
I'm not a computer scientist. I'm a software engineer. I'm a programmer. I just happen to have invented a language.
There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.
Python is a 'batteries included' language.
I'm not a dictator, I'm a Benevolent Dictator For Life.
The BDFL is not a king, but a servant of the community.
Python was designed to be an easily readable language.
Contemporaries of Guido van Rossum
Other Computer Sciences born within 50 years of Guido van Rossum (1956).