>>> Is Python dying?
False
Ask HN: Is Python dying?
61–70 of 369 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#62Unless there is another language that beats Python in terms of simplicity of toolchain, deployment and syntax, Python is not going to die. Very few people care about the performance of a language (this is same as asking whether Intel i5 or i7 is a better choice when most of what you'll be using is Microsoft Word or PowerPoint), and Python provides reasonable and handy solution to that problem as well (pypy).
Bottom line is that performance does not predict whether a language will die or live. That's not what most people care about.
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#63The word for Python is mature. If fireworks aren't going off with every release, it's because it's past that phase of life.
The only concern I have for Python is exactly the temptation to keep adding features and chasing other language's tail lights. I've recently gotten the chance to see a fairly novice programmer dip toes into some Python-based testing code, and it's definitely gotten pretty easy to make awfully magical and complicated Python code after all the decades of accumulated features. They get a very different experience with Python getting the whole thing dumped on them at once than I did riding with the language from roughly 2.0 and watching the features come in one by one.
Python has many advantages over, say, Go right now, but the advantages that Go has over Python, Python is not in a position to reasonably add to itself. Is it "future-proofing" Python, or is it taking something already pretty complicated and crusting on one-too-many layers of "features"?
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#64The word for Python is mature. If fireworks aren't going off with every release, it's because it's past that phase of life.
The only concern I have for Python is exactly the temptation to keep adding features and chasing other language's tail lights. I've recently gotten the chance to see a fairly novice programmer dip toes into some Python-based testing code, and it's definitely gotten pretty easy to make awfully magical and complicated Python code after all the decades of accumulated features. They get a very different experience with Python getting the whole thing dumped on them at once than I did riding with the language from roughly 2.0 and watching the features come in one by one.
Python has many advantages over, say, Go right now, but the advantages that Go has over Python, Python is not in a position to reasonably add to itself. Is it "future-proofing" Python, or is it taking something already pretty complicated and crusting on one-too-many layers of "features"?
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
At my work we recently needed to hire a developer. We gave them all a very basic problem to solve and told them "use any language, use any libraries". The idea was to get a feel for their coding style - do they comment their code, is their logic something the rest of the team could follow, will they address unmentioned issues, will they press for clearer requirements, etc. A few notable solutions: 1) The C guy. Damn…
One of my favorite pieces of code I've written is a 150 line Python script I made to solve a really ugly text processing problem. I have tried to use it as a code sample when talking to potential employers, but it backfires because it makes the original problem look so simple that they wonder why I bothered to send it.
Maybe you should try a reverse interview process. Send them the original problem, ask them to have one of their top developers solve it, and then compare solutions.
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why can't Julia fill that role?
Try to do machine learning in Julia; it is difficult. If I want to say fit a gradient boosted tree or SVM its not support in Julia, whilst appears in Python/R libraries. Also, with Spark being more and more popular in the data science landscape, the lack of Julia bindings is also a no for the data scientists I work with (Spark has Python/R bindings).
You will have to reach a little deeper for machine learning methods not supported by Julia. XGBoost has a Julia interface and you can google Julia SVM for myriad of alternatives. Packages like Mocha and MXNet are a few deep learning alternatives. PyCall is also an easy solution for interfacing with Python for things such as pyspark. It also has some of the most convenient to use parallel / distributed computing tools for numerical computing.
Point being that even if Julia is not there to replace Python, there is still a strong case for using it as a way to augment Python workflow.
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#67Interesting stats regarding version 2/3 usage from a moderator of /r/python today: Here's the breakdown by which Pythons were used to download from PyPI in the last two weeks: 2.7 85.90% 2.6 6.66% 3.4 4.64% 3.5 2.09% 3.3 0.56% 3.2 0.12% (Two weeks was ~133 million downloads) https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/45sm94/what_are_the...
Be aware that PyPI isn't a great way to get accurate statistics. One of the reasons is when tox tests via a matrix, Python 2.7 is usually the first python listed, and if it fails then Python > 3 will not be tested. Also, it'll reuse libraries from the pip download cache. I don't doubt that python 2.7 accounts for the majority of the downloads, but I sincerely doubt 2.7 usage is at ~85%. 2.6 usage is probably almost e…
Be aware that PyPI isn't a great way to get accurate statistics.
Statistical sampling is based on the premise that your sample is randomized from the total population; I would argue that the stats from pypi represent a reasonable random sample of python users around the world.
Certainly, you can argue otherwise... if you care to provide some meaningful alternative statistics?
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#68Interesting stats regarding version 2/3 usage from a moderator of /r/python today: Here's the breakdown by which Pythons were used to download from PyPI in the last two weeks: 2.7 85.90% 2.6 6.66% 3.4 4.64% 3.5 2.09% 3.3 0.56% 3.2 0.12% (Two weeks was ~133 million downloads) https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/45sm94/what_are_the...
I wonder how many users actually download packages, as opposed to something like Anaconda or WinPython. It may be that the users of Python 2 may be more likely to download individual packages because they are creating more specialized installations (e.g., web services etc.) whereas the educational and scientific crowd just get a big distribution like Anaconda or WinPython. For instance I use WinPython for convenience, and typically use Python 3.
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#69No. Python is rather getting stronger and going enterprise than dying
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes...but one that is also very fast, portable and with great generic programming.
Stuff like Numba greatly decreases the need for Julia. C++17 also feels surprisingly dynamic, and together with Cython for easy Python-C++ interop also decreases the need for Julia. And reports from the Julia world are not exactly encouraging - http://danluu.com/julialang/
That report is over a year old, which for a 4 year old language is a very long time. The top comment in [1] is from a week ago and highlights why it is now mostly invalid.