From: lutz at rmi.net (Mark Lutz)
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 13:42:41 -0600
Subject: Is Python dying?
References: <7dos4m$usi$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com><7e30fp$8vf$1@news1.rmi.net> <14085.18282.936883.727575@bitdiddle.cnri.reston.va.us>
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X-UID: 1115                                                  

Sidebar: you have to be careful with amazon's numbers,
because they tend to change too fast to be very useful.
I've seen Programming Python go from #500 to #5000 in
a day or two; Learning Python changes just as fast (in
fact, it was ranked #409 as I wrote this).

Their numbers are probably okay as a quick-and-dirty
estimate; but for a better picture, you'd have to take
an average over a long period of time, and then take
into consideration that their numbers are skewed towards
online shopper's interests.  Publishers get much more
useful sales information from the big distributors.

OTOH, I wouldn't mind seeing Python in the top 100 ;-).

--Mark Lutz  (http://rmi.net/~lutz)


Jeremy Hylton wrote in message
<14085.18282.936883.727575 at bitdiddle.cnri.reston.va.us>...
>This is really useless information, but I guess I along with most
>other people are fascinated by top ten lists and movie grosses and
>... Amazon.com sales ranks.
>
>Title                          Amazon.com Sales Rank
>Learning Python                       1,570
>Programming Python                    1,685
>Python : Pocket Reference             3,218
>Internet Programming With Python      8,720
>Mastering Regular Expressions           931
>Programming Perl, 2nd ed.                81
>Perl Cookbook                           136
>The C Programming Language              478
>The C++ Programming Language          1,003
>Tcl and the Tk Toolkit                3,362
>
>Learning Python seems to be selling well for a book that hasn't been
>shipped. :-)






