Need Help in Preparing for Study of Python by Forrester Research

Forrester Research is doing a study on dynamic languages and has asked that Python be represented. As advocacy coordinator I've volunteered to drive this, collecting answers from the community and locating representatives to participate in interviews.

The goal of the study is to:

• identify the criteria to use for evaluating such languages
• identify the relevant choices of dynamic languages
• identify how the different dynamic languages stack up
• examine where dynamic languages work best

Initially, they'd like feedback (not yet the answers themselves) from us regarding their proposed evaluation criteria - questions to add or that give no value, rewording to make them more clear. I've posted their draft criteria, which came as a spreadsheet at:

http://dfwpython.org/uploads/Forrester/DynamicLanguagesCriteria--Draft.xls

Later, between May 8 and 25, the researchers will need to interview via 1-hour telephone calls, several developers with experience using Python. And they want to also interview one person with an executive viewpoint, able to describe relevant background, positioning, value proposition, customer base, and strategic vision.

And later they would also like snippets of Python code that illustrate the power of Python, and I hope to call upon community members to help in producing that. The snippets do not have to be originally written and can be pulled from existing projects.

But those steps come later. For now let's focus on analysis of the evaluation criteria at the above URL. Time is short as they'd like that feedback by May 3, so please get any responses to me as soon as possible. And be thinking who would best represent the executive view of Python in an interview.

Thanks for your help,

Jeff Rush
Advocacy Coordinator