Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

One reason I stayed with Perl as my programming language of choice despite the increasing popularity of Python is the chaos displayed in this XKCD cartoon - different (and incompatible) versions, custom environments, and more. The use of Docker, the guidance of AI, and the development of new management tools like uv and ty have made it bearable for me, and I've developed a number of utilities using it. So it's of interest to me that OpenAI is buying the company that made those tools - as opposed to Anthropic, which really excels in programming support. Anyhow, everything here is all open source, so it's not like we'll suddenly lose support. And it gives me a good reason to explain why I've been so slow to adopt Python.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

Copyright 2026
Last Updated: Mar 20, 2026 10:33 a.m.

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