Python appeals to programmers. That's who we have to sell ourselves to. Forget everyone else. Let the programmers sell it to their own managers -- if they really love Python, they'll go through that effort. If they are really successful with Python it won't be hard for them -- Python will sell itself. If Python can't sell itself then it doesn't deserve to be adopted -- ultimately what matters is what people build in Python, not the virtues of the language itself.
What we need to do is get our foot in the door. We need to get programmers to write projects and do so successfully. We need those projects to be visible to managers.
Web programming is the best way to get our foot in the door. A programmer with little experience can produce a useful web application in a matter of hours. Not just playful or interesting, but something that can actually go into productive and live use. The only other environment where that is possible is the command line -- and managers never see programmers' command line tools.
Web programming is also a kind of universal need. Sure, there's lots of things besides the web. But unless you really try to avoid the web, as a programmer you are likely to have occasional problems that are best solved with a web application. This is true no matter what field you are in. In part because web applications don't just touch on core needs -- e.g., embedded programming at a hardware company, numerical analysis at an engineering firm -- but on any coordination needs, and everyone needs to coordinate things. The embedded
programmer might display test results in a web page, the engineer may collect data via a web upload form. If they have successful experiences in Python in these cases, it is only natural that they will try to use Python elsewhere. That's great, because Python is appropriate in some way for most of those other use cases too.
When we consider Python marketing, we should look for accessible marketing successes. Java isn't accessible. The PSF isn't Sun, Zope 3 and PEAK aren't J2EE, and I could go on. These aren't just technical differences, they are based on deep social differences. We need to look at agile and open source successes. (And we have to look at successes, so no need to look at Smalltalk or Lisp...)
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