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Ask HN: Is Python dying?

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Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#181

Post by meowface »

switchbak wrote: post #156
Alex3917 wrote: post #16

Not only is Python not dying, but it's stronger than it's ever been. The majority of top colleges are now teaching CS using Python. It's completely dominant in academia, finance, and startups. It has the best libraries and documentation of any language. And Django has arguably the strongest community of any open source project period. That's not to say there are zero problems, but Python is so much better than all th…

I wouldn't say Python is dominant in startups across the board. Though it is strong in data-heavy environments (with all it's issues nonetheless). I've been a Pythonista for over a decade, and the API scene isn't quite as utopian as you describe. Date/time handling in particular is a really poorly handled area, but there's quite a few out there. That said, in general I agree the 'batteries included' approach is good,…

I think there's more of an interest in scalability and compile-time checking among startups nowadays, hence the shift from dynamic languages to lightly static languages like Go or all of the type-checking and Haskell-derived JS variants out there.

This means Python and Ruby aren't as much of a first choice as they used to be, even if they're arguably a lot faster for getting MVPs out.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#182

Post by disillusioned1 »

joslin01 wrote: post #122
hoodoof wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your snark was somewhat incoherent. Can you be more clear? guessing from the cpan in your name you're a Perl person?

It was coherent and I would not define it as snark. You don't comprehend his point yet you have the wherewithal to label it as incoherent & snarky -- that's snarky. But I digress.. Python users had a choice to stay in 2.7 land or make changes to their codebase for not much in return. Many chose to stay in 2.7 land, which you could safely say is stagnant. As a result, if you can't keep moving with Python, where will y…

Are you saying it's a better investment to jump to another language altogether than to jump from 2.7 to 3.5?

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#183

Post by hoodoof »

abrookewood wrote: post #144
leftnode wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're too busy getting paid writing Perl.

lol .. It's still pretty shocking. I know lots of programmers, including some that used to write lots of Perl, and none of them are still working on it. Those job numbers are crazy.

Could it be that there's so many open Perl jobs because there are no programmers to fill them?

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#185

Post by TheWiseOne »

spiralpolitik wrote: post #88
viraptor wrote: post #5

That may be a view through the distorted HN lenses. Spend some time on Lambda the Ultimate and you'll think imperative programming is dying. Go is new and has lots of issues. It's annoying on many fronts and badly needs improvements in packaging area. It's good for some things and worse for others. JS is for frontend, because it's the only supported language. (although there are python-to-js compilers available if yo…

Next year has always been the year that functional programming will take over the world. It's been like that since I started programming in the early 90s. While functional concepts have leaked into imperative languages, Haskell is the only pure functional language that so far has come close to breaking out although Lisp has also gotten close a few times. (see also next year will be the year of Linux on Desktop)

F#?

It's used by a few big names (Bayard Rock, Tachyus, Jet.com, BlueMountain Capital, Microsoft Research, etc.) and it looks to be gaining more mainstream acceptance.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#186

Post by pyre »

karavelov wrote: post #130
johannes1234321 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exact same could be said about Perl 6 ;)

It can't be said - Perl6 is completely different language and brings a lot of desireable features on the table. The problem is that it is not so easy to port Perl5 code to Perl6 as porting Python from 2 and 3.

> The problem is that it is not so easy to port Perl5 code to Perl6 as porting Python from 2 and 3.

Is this really the case?

https://github.com/niner/Inline-Perl5

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9173043/how-can-i-use-per...

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#187

Post by Alex3917 »

matroosberg wrote: post #119
Alex3917 wrote: post #16

Not only is Python not dying, but it's stronger than it's ever been. The majority of top colleges are now teaching CS using Python. It's completely dominant in academia, finance, and startups. It has the best libraries and documentation of any language. And Django has arguably the strongest community of any open source project period. That's not to say there are zero problems, but Python is so much better than all th…

Completely dominant in finance? Do you have a source for that claim?

Actually that's probably not accurate now that I think about it. Python is mostly used by quants and people figuring out what trades to make, as well as for some of the internal business tools. Whereas the people building the actual exchanges are probably using Java or C++.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#188

Post by 746F7475 »

I'm not quite sure why people are always so concerned about programming languages "dying", like if the language not being popular has anything affect on the applications already using it.

If you are starting your own company or a side project choose a language that a) best suites your needs and b) you know. Unless your goal is to learn a new language you probably don't want to write your business logic in a completely new language just because it's popular at the moment. And outside of stuff you actually have a say in (i.e. stuff you do for your employer) it doesn't matter what language(s) you know as long as you know something that's applicable.

I learned PHP as my first language (well, I wrote some VB stuff for school before that, but I never wrote it on my spare time), after that I went on to JS just before college and in college I learned C#/Java, but also for my web side projects (which I made some money from) I learned Ruby. Now since graduating I've also dabbled in Python and very lately little in Perl6 (just because the syntax looks so nice), but for my actual job I'm mostly working with Python. It's not my favorite language, but my Ruby and JS (as well as general programming knowledge) carries me through the tasks, it's not like I'm in completely different world where I can't function.

My point is as long as you know how to program the language shouldn't matter, obviously jumping from something like Python to C++ is a bigger change than going from Ruby to Python, but it's not imposible and if your employer really just cares about your languages they are either super specialized and doing some weird shit (which might be your thing and then all you can do is to learn that language) or they really don't know what they want/need.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#189

Post by dcu »

no1youknowz wrote: post #40

I don't know. As a single developer house, I have a behemoth of a project. Started out with PHP, then used Python for the backend (php sucks as daemons). Expanded to NodeJS for real-time elements. Used JS exclusively for the front-end. When I found python not working as it should be for heavy concurrent tasks, I used Go. So PHP, Python, NodeJS, Go, JS all for 1 project. Couple this with NoSQL, Postgres, Varnish, Ngin…

I completely agree with you and I had the same experience. Once you know the Go concepts (which are very few and simple) Go is not harder to write than Python. Probably easier to write and read.

I came to the conclusion that people who complain about Go haven't really try it.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#190

Post by jotux »

hoodoof wrote: post #36

http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=python Showing 1-10 of 169,970 Python jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=ruby Showing 1-10 of 128,305 Ruby jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=java Showing 1-10 of 190,126 Java jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=golang Showing 1-10 of 219 Golang jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=julia Showing 1-10 of 206 Julia jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=%22pyth…

188k for java and 258k for C++.
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