Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language, has come out of retirement to join the Developer Division at Microsoft.
Although I’m an Apple enthusiast (no use denying it), I like the way Microsoft is increasingly embracing open technologies. I’m barely a script kiddie when it comes to Python, but it really is a fun language to learn. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of this collaboration.
The fact that Microsoft, of all companies, is becoming more open-source friendly is not that surprising when you consider the sort of things they’ve been doing recently. But like John Gruber says on Daring Fireball:
Historically speaking, though, it’s unimaginable. If you took a time machine back to 2000 and told a crowd of Python enthusiasts that in 2020 Guido van Rossum would be working at Microsoft, half of them wouldn’t believe you and the other half would pass out.