Ask HN: Why use Python?

#1

Post by xcoding » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 4:52 PM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: Why use Python?

#2

Post by PaulHoule » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 5:09 PM UTC

Customers want it. I like Java myself, but the Python ecosystem is similar in scope and quality. There is nothing really wrong with Python.

Re: Ask HN: Why use Python?

#3

Post by sparkling » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 5:21 PM UTC

Easy to read, easy to write, great high-quality libraries for pretty much everything.

Re: Ask HN: Why use Python?

#4

Post by mattbillenstein » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 5:24 PM UTC

Good readable syntax, strong built-in data structures, good libraries for just about everything, less "magic" than other similar languages, moves at a deliberate pace and values backwards compatibility (minus the 2->3 thing).

Re: Ask HN: Why use Python?

#5

Post by theophrastus » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 5:24 PM UTC

For me, entirely because of python's large, referenced, and well-documented numerical libraries (e.g. scipy and numpy).

Re: Ask HN: Why use Python?

#6

Post by pryelluw » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 6:08 PM UTC

It works well,is not handicapped by verbose idioms, works on most platforms and environments, can glue together other technologies, and the community is pretty good.

I just wish it supported the functional paradigm.

Re: Ask HN: Why use Python?

#7

Post by ransom1538 » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 7:02 PM UTC

"The encoding is done using a function from the urllib library not from urllib2."

I love python. An ancient mess.

Re: Ask HN: Why use Python?

#8

Post by apetrov » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

pandas. it's a killer library.

Re: Ask HN: Why use Python?

#9

Post by git-pull » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 7:20 PM UTC

Scales small-to-medium codebases well. Modules and packages work well. PEP8. Linting tools like flake8.

Documentation is top tier. Docutils + Sphinx + ReadTheDocs. Autodoc and intersphinx (linking across python projects) are just wonderfully implemented.

Contrib Library quality. Mature and well documented. Permissively licensed. Django, SQLAlachemy, Requests, Flask, Werkzeug, Boto, Jupyter, Numpy, Pandas, Scipy, fabric, ansible, saltstack, pytest (a new favorite of mine).

Standard library quality. Well documented and just the right amount of features in many cases. In some situations you may find more elegant API's in the contrib community.

OOP is implemented nicely. It scales well. It's easy to traverse large codebases and get situational orientation fast.

Language consistency. Python 3 is generally a consistent language. There are warts in every language, but nothing in python is insurmountable. Python 2.7 with __future__ imports and a compat module eliminates a lot of problems.

Debugging: Tracebacks are human friendly. ptpython/ptpdb and ipython/ipdb are a delight to work with.

C API integration. Well documented and well supported. Also see Cython, CFFI. Also C++ with boost python and pybind11

Editor integration. Jedi, pycharm

Stability. CPython (the main implementation) doesn't break. Clear distinction between 2 and 3 and easy enough to code to both versions. Contrib libraries generally follow semver and have consistent API's

Community. Friendly and great support on IRC and so on.

Re: Ask HN: Why use Python?

#10

Post by jmstfv » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 7:32 PM UTC

Because it is elegant.