Python @ Microsoft

Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language, has come out of retirement to join the Developer Division at Microsoft.

I decided that retirement was boring and have joined the Developer Division at Microsoft. To do what? Too many options to say! But it’ll make using Python better for sure (and not just on Windows :-). There’s lots of open source here. Watch this space.

— Guido van Rossum (@gvanrossum) November 12, 2020

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.