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Posted by u/maxloh 13 days ago
MI6 chief: We'll be as fluent in Python as we are in Russiantheregister.com/2025/12/1...
codebyaditya · 12 days ago
Not just MI6 — USCIS and consular affairs have been doing this since ~2017. Many visa-fraud detection systems are now Python-based because the legacy mainframes can’t ingest the volume or velocity of data needed. The bigger change is that case officers are expected to interpret code output directly, not just read a summary from a tech team.
yawpitch · 13 days ago
Kind of horrifying to think that the head of an intelligence agency thinks Russian and Python are the ones the tip of the spear needs to be fluent in.
manfromchina1 · 13 days ago
What are some other really useful skills? AI/ML frameworks, data skills, cloud basics, embedded programming, PCB design, sensor integration, front-end, back-end/API, version control? That would just be a start. After that an MI6 hopeful would have to pick up some physics, materials science and basics of precision instrumentation so they can get a job at a Chinese foundry...for reasons. Oh, and they would have to be good at Mandarin, too. Nobody said spying was easy :)
yawpitch · 13 days ago
No, but shouldn’t the bar for “well-compensated disposable mole” be higher?
noodlebird · 13 days ago
that would be horrifying if that was what was said. in the speech itself not mastery in python or russian is named, but mastery in every domain.
yawpitch · 13 days ago
The quote in the article is "as fluent in Python as we are in multiple other languages”… Russian is mentioned elsewhere, so gets incorporated by reference rather than directly here, but Python is still the exemplar she used for computerese.

Mastery in every domain is great, but part of that is knowing that mastering Python isn’t mastering any CS domain.