Sun Puts Python and Jython Experts on the Payroll

Published: March 18, 2008

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

And you thought all that Sun Microsystems cared about was C++ for system code and Java for application code. Last week, the server and operating system maker hired two key techies who are working on the Python programming language and its variant, Jython, formerly known as JPython and a variant of Python that is itself written in Java.

Specifically, Ted Leung, a member of the Apache Software Foundation and a developer of Python who is a member of the Open Source Applications Foundation and is working on its Chandler personal information management software project. Sun has also hired Frank Wierzbicki, the lead developer working on the Jython project. Wierzbicki is the fifth techie to steer the development of Jython, which was created in 1997 by Jim Hugunin. Python is, of course, a much older language, but still relatively young by computing standards, even for a high-level programming language; it was first released in 1991 by Guido van Rossum as an improved version of a programming language called ABC. Van Rossum carries the humorous title of Benevolent Dictator for Life by the Python community.

The move follows Sun's hiring in September 2006 of Charles Nutter and Thomas Enebo, two of the four lead developers on another Java implementation of a popular programming language--in this case Ruby on Rails and the consequent JRuby implementation of the programming language that is also written in Java like Jython.

Sun is very happy to have other programming languages exist in the world--so long as they execute in a Java virtual machine. This is akin to Microsoft's own attitude toward the Common Language Runtime environment at the heart of its .NET programming model, which tends to emphasize the C# variant of C++ and Java but which also allows other programming languages to execute inside the CLR.

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