Probably most of us know that the verb “to grok” was coined by Robert Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land, about a dude raised by Martians having to adjust to life on Earth. “Grok” was a Martian word and meant “to comprehend deeply” or something like that.
Python is a computer language (general purpose) named after Monty Python (which was named after what again?), the British comedy troupe famous for its quirky skits on BBC television. Guido, a Dutch prodigy in Amsterdam at the time, could tune in the BBC and Monty Python gave him a useful set of memes to work with.
Naturally, the “nasty snake” associations have built up also. Pythonistas actually get a lot of mileage from snake metaphors, or at least I do.
When I introduce Python, I might start with a picture of a snake’s skeleton (too scary?), to emphasize the proposition that “snakes have lots of ribs”. Then I’ll spell the word “ __ribs__” in this funny way, with those two underline characters in front and behind the letters.
Or if I want the singular, I’ll write “__rib__”.
Why? What’s that all about?
