• Eric S. Raymond is the author of 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar' and is also the person who coined the term 'Open Source'. He says that Python has become his favorite programming language [http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=3882]. This article was the real inspiration for my first brush with Python.
• Bruce Eckel is the author of the famous 'Thinking in Java' and 'Thinking in C++' books. He says that no language has made him more productive than Python. He says that Python is perhaps the only language that focuses on making things easier for the programmer. Read the complete interview [http://www.artima.com/intv/aboutme.html] for more details.
• Peter Norvig is a well-known Lisp author and Director of Search Quality at Google (thanks to Guido van Rossum for pointing that out). He says that Python has always been an integral part of Google. You can actually verify this statement by looking at the Google Jobs [http://www.google.com/jobs/index.html] page which lists Python knowledge as a requirement for software engineers.
• Bruce Perens is a co-founder of OpenSource.org and the UserLinux project. UserLinux aims to create a standardized Linux distribution supported by multiple vendors. Python has beaten contenders like Perl and Ruby to become the main programming language that will be supported by UserLinux.