The history of Python and how it took over the world | Python: The Documentary

This is the story of the world's most beloved programming language: Python. What began as a side project in Amsterdam during the 1990s became the software powering artificial intelligence, data science and some of the world’s biggest companies. But Python's future wasn't certain; at one point it almost disappeared. This 90-minute documentary features Guido van Rossum, Travis Oliphant, Barry Warsaw, and many more, and they tell the story of Python’s rise, its community-driven evolution, the conflicts that almost tore it apart, and the language’s impact on... well… everything. Thanks to our sponsors for making this documentary possible: Anaconda: https://www.anaconda.com/ ‪@AnacondaInc. Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/ @Dropbox Meta: https://opensource.fb.com/ ‪@FacebookOpenSource OpenTeams: https://openteams.com/ ‪@openteams PyCharm: https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/ ‪@PyCharmIDE Quansight: https://quansight.com/ ‪@quansight And to all the amazing people who are featured: Armin Ronacher, Barry Warsaw, Benjamin Peterson, Brett Cannon, Drew Houston, Guido van Rossum, Jessica McKellar, Ken Manheimer, Lambert Meertens, Lisa Guo, Lisa Roach, Mariatta Wijaya, Paul Everitt, Patrice Lyons, Peter Wang, Robin Friedrich, Robert Kahn, Sjoerd Mullender, Steven Pemberton, Tim O'Reilly, Ton Roosendaal, and Travis Oliphant. Additional thanks to The Python Software Foundation and Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI). Picture of Guido at Dropbox by Dan Stroud from Squero (Brand and Creative Studio) Squero.com Python comic (Import Antigravity) by xkcd: https://xkcd.com/353/ Clips used from Fun: A Python Love Story (2001): https://openbookproject.net/pybiblio/pythonvideo.php Massive thanks for the Korean subtitles translation to: Haen Noh, Junwon Lee, Haeyong Lee, Mir Jung and Hwanseok Joo. Follow us: https://x.com/CultRepo/ https://bsky.app/profile/cultrepo.bsky.social https://www.instagram.com/cult.repo/ Chapters 00:00 - Intro 01:10 - ABC - the predecessor to Python 03:50 - The Amoeba system 05:26 - Guido creating Python 08:38 - Open source release 10:36 - A growing community 13:13 - Famous 1994 Workshop 16:04 - Corporation for National Research Initiatives 18:21 - Origins of the BDFL 19:48 - Early scientific Python community (Travis Oliphant) 21:45 - Importance of Python being open source (Blender) 24:03 - Early Python contributors and the importance of fun 25:25 - The Zen of Python 27:56 - Tumultuous start-up life 30:33 - Birth of the Python Software Foundation 31:58 - The community is the true strength of Python 34:39 - Growth: Web development (Dropbox) 37:28 - Growth: Data science (Anaconda) 41:23 - Dropbox hiring Guido 42:59 - Python 2 to 3 55:21 - "Python is for Girls" 58:30 - Mariatta's story 01:06:05 - Growth: AI/ML (Meta) 01:08:55 - Guido at PyCon 01:10:46 - The Walrus Operator 01:14:14 - Guido stepping down as BDFL 01:16:35 - "Can this work without Guido?" (Governance) 01:20:38 - Guido never expected Python's success 01:21:25 - Python has taken over the world 01:23:19 - Credits Thank you to the organisers of PyCon Korea for translating the documentary into Korean! Subtitles now available.