March 2, 2026
Two Dutchmen, one pie duel
Guido van Rossum Interviews Thomas Wouters (Python Core Dev)
Python legends spill tea: fans nostalgic, editors nitpick, and a pie duel wins hearts
TLDR: Guido launched a written interview series on Python’s early history, starting with core dev Thomas Wouters. Fans loved the nostalgia and brainy banter, critics wanted heavier editing, and a jokey “pie duel” anecdote stole the spotlight—proof that documenting pioneers can be both informative and delightfully chaotic.
Guido van Rossum just kicked off a written interview series spotlighting Python’s old guard (pre-2015), and the first guest is veteran core dev Thomas Wouters—aka the guy who helped bring the "+=" shortcut into your life. The chat is a time machine: from early online worlds like LambdaMOO to Amsterdam’s early internet scene, to Python shop talk and even a playful debate over a "range literal" (think writing 1..10 instead of spelling it out). But the real movie is playing in the comments.
Readers are split between cozy nostalgia and editor-brain fatigue. One camp is swooning over the nerdy banter (“two brilliant engineers thinking out loud!”), while others beg for a tighter cut, calling it a bit too close to a raw transcript. Then a wild flashback steals the thread: a commenter recalls a Python board election tie where someone jokingly floated a “shootout,” Guido volleyed with “pies,” and sanity prevailed. The crowd instantly crowned the pie duel the official Python governance ritual. Cue memes like “pie > podcast,” and “LambdaMOO kids secretly built the internet.”
Between love for the written format (no podcast homework!) and debates over polish vs. authenticity, the community’s verdict is messy, loud, and very online—exactly how tech history should be told. Bonus points for Twisted shout-outs and a fresh appreciation of the PSF era drama.
Key Points
- •Guido van Rossum launches a written interview series to document Python’s early history, focusing on contributors active before 2015.
- •The first interview features Thomas Wouters, a Python core developer involved in augmented assignment, free threading, and governance roles within the PSF and Steering Council.
- •Wouters’ programming roots include LambdaMOO and Amsterdam’s Digital City, which initially used Gopher and hosted a LambdaMOO instance.
- •Wouters worked at Dutch ISP XS4ALL for 11 years as a system administrator and software developer before being introduced to Python around 1998–1999.
- •The interview highlights conceptual similarities between LambdaMOO and Python, including object orientation and dynamic typing.