We have been using Python in the Space Shuttle program since 1993 when I first downloaded it from the CWI in Amsterdam. At the time there was a project to re-develop our fundamental trajectory simulation capabilities as a library of reusable components. We needed a language which could be used as an executive, or control, mechanism for all these C++ classes we were developing. The web was very young then, (I think there were only a few hundred HTTP servers in the world then), but I was able to use gopher to search for "Object Oriented Programming". Behold this thing called Python popped up and I went to the URL. From CWI I downloaded I think version 0.93 and untarr'ed the source. It built without trouble on our Sun workstations in a few minutes. (I was impressed already.) We soon realized we had the perfect tool for the job. Python could bind to C/C++ libraries easily with its API, and its object oriented syntax matched the C++ objects we were writing object for object, method for method. I was a Perl user too and Python put an end to that! We've been enthusiatic Python boosters (sic) ever since. I was even able to talk my company into sending me up to Gathersburg to the first Python Workshop. Can't say that I've contributed anything to the Python language but boy have I been exploiting it!
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