Mark Shuttleworth, Founder of Canonical (maker of the Ubuntu Linux Distribution) spoke with me at the PyCon 2010 Python conference in Atlanta, GA.

Just one week shy of Christmas 2008, the Python world saw the release of version 3 of Python. Big deal, eh? Well ... it turns out it was and is, as Python 3 is the first major release of Python designed from the get-go to be incompatible with prior versions of the language.

Jim Zemlin: This is Jim Zemlin. I’m here with Mark Shuttleworth today as part of our ongoing conversations at the Linux Foundation with leaders in the Linux community and technology industry where we hope to get insight into the trends that are shaping the future of open source and Linux.

PyCon 2009 drew nearly a thousand Python programmers from around the world, representing projects on all seven continents - including Antarctica! They gathered for serious learning, discussion, and strategizing... and for not-so-serious fun. PyCon 2010, the eighth annual conference of the Python programming community, promises even more.

With the latest major Python release, creator Guido van Rossum saw the opportunity to tidy up his famous scripting language. What is different about Python 3.0? In this article, I offer some highlights for Python programmers who are thinking about making the switch to 3.x.

"Python is an interpreted programming language created by Guido van Rossum in 1990. Python is fully dynamically typed and uses automatic memory management; it is thus similar to Perl, Ruby, Scheme, Smalltalk, and Tcl. Python is developed as an open source project, managed by the non-profit Python Software Foundation..."

"This version of my Python mode provides support for the
recently-released Python 3 [...] It's lightly tested; please report problems/deficiencies to me..."

Mark Shuttleworth delivered the closing keynote at this year's inaugural Linuxcon. He delivered an enticing vision of the future of Linux and Free software, with a catch-- it means breaking drastically from the old ways. Carla Schroder reports on the highlights of his keynote, and readers can view the keynote as well.

It may seem like Python is just another scripting language, but know that when you are using Linux, the chances are there is some Python code working backstage helping you. Among other things, this article looks into the versatile nature of Python and its many uses…