Online storage startup Dropbox has hired Guido van Rossum -- creator of the massively popular Python programming language -- prying him away from the language's biggest backer: Google.
Like Google, Dropbox uses Python heavily in building its online services.
Dropbox declined to comment on van Rossum's move -- which was first reported by TechCrunch -- and though it discussed the move in a blog post on Friday, the company has not said what role van Rossum will play at Dropbox -- or how much time he'll devote to the continued development of Python.
On Google+, van Rossum wrote that Friday is his last day of work at Google and that he will start work at Dropbox in January. He said that he and Google are "parting as the best of friends," and he posted photos of his desk at Google covered in balloons.
He joined Google in 2005, where he spent half his time working on the development of Python, according to his homepage. He also worked on other projects, such as Google App Engine, an online service where anyone can build and host applications written in Python, Java, or Google's own Go programming language.
Van Rossum began developing Python in 1989 at the CWI research institute in The Netherlands. The language is named for the British comedy troupe Monty Python -- not the snake. "For many years I resisted attempts to associate the language with snakes," he wrote on the Python History Blog. "I finally gave up when O’Reilly wanted to put a snake on the front of their first Python book 'Programming Python.'"
At the Python Software Foundation -- which oversees development of the language -- van Rossum's official title is "Benevolent Dictator For Life," which means he has final say on any proposed changes to the official version of the language. Although the title is used by many other open source project founders -- such as the creator of the Ruby programming language, Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto, and Linux creator Linus Torvalds -- van Rossum has written that the term originated in 1995 at the first meeting of the foundation's predecessor.
Google is the most famous Python backer, but it's now used by companies and developers across the globe. It is the fourth most popular language in industry analyst firm RedMonk's regular language rankings. Artist of the popular geek comic strip XKCD, penned a love letter to the language in the form of a comic strip. Earlier this year, the language was the clear favorite in a very unscientific poll of Hacker News readers, who are a good barometer of developer activity in Silicon Valley.
Dropbox has used Python since its launch, according to Dropbox co-founder and CEO Drew Houston's blog post announcing the company's hiring of van Rossum.
"Python became my favorite programming language because it had a balance of simplicity, flexibility, and elegance," Houston wrote. "These qualities of Python, and the community’s work to support every major platform, let us write the code just once before running it everywhere."
