I forget where I saw it, but someone said Python is the second-best language for pretty much everything, which is why it's such a useful language to have in your tool chest.
Ask HN: Is Python dying?
191–200 of 369 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#192> Julia for data science I work in scientific computing, and while me and my colleagues have all experimented with Julia at some level (and definitely welcome having more options), I don't yet know of anyone who has built any part of their permanent toolchain with it yet. Are there any notable use cases out in the wild yet (known internal use by an organization, or major FOSS tool or framework)?
I won't comment on organizations using Julia, but some conclusions can be drawn from the presenters and sponsors at JuliaCon 2015: http://juliacon.org/2015/
Here is a brief list of some major packages that I am aware of:
- https://github.com/JuliaOpt/JuMP.jl - https://github.com/JuliaOpt/Convex.jl (Stephen Boyd's current and former students) - https://github.com/ApproxFun/ApproxFun.jl (Nick Trefethen's former students) - https://github.com/dmlc/MXNet.jl - http://nemocas.org
Julia has been used (and cited) in at least one Nature publication: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v526/n7575/full/nature1...
A larger list (with associated publications): http://julialang.org/publications/
Julia is also being used for courses at a number of universities: http://julialang.org/teaching/
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#193Mate, you've got to stop taking the social media hype at face value. I remember desperately trying to learn Haskell during my pedagogical years because all of /r/programming was talking about it. Clearly it was the next big thing! In the end I decided that I enjoyed F# more, but since then neither language has been anywhere close to relevant in my career.
I write my back-ends in JVM languages, because the JVM is performant for my use cases, and the ecosystem is very rich. I'm currently liking Kotlin as a better Java, and I dabble with Clojure for fun. Oh, and I can't resist having a jab at the ol' Go-has-no-generics thing. Go has no generics, which leads to type-unsafe upcasting to interface{} or copy and paste. Both of which are shite.
I write my data science code in Scala (on account of how that's the nicest Spark API, although the Python one looks good).
Yep, JS for the front-end when you're doing heavily dynamic sites, but if it's a slightly-less-than static CRUD site? Django is ideal, free CRUD interface, no fucking around with the tool and fad filled hell-hole of modern JS development.
(I must admit to some hypocrisy because despite the above statement, I quite like React).
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#194The thing you ideally want from a language is the ability to benefit from an ecosystem adding functionality, teaching, open sourcing libraries etc.
The Python ecosystem seems healthy to me. Interesting things are happening in the language around incremental typing and async.
Python seems like the language of choice for binding C and C++ libraries.
Python devs seems widely in demand.
There is definitely a pullback in using Python in performance critical conditions where Go seems to be making huge progress.
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#195Python is used in academia (eg SICP) so it's not going anywhere. Consider it's a google approved language like Java and Go and Javascript. I can't see python going anywhere.
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#196That 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…
When people say dying, they never mean it's just going to disappear. The hit-and-run on Go being a new 7 year old language seems unfair. It has great performance and has proven itself in production.
There's a lot more competition for computer languages. It might end up like Perl. More people use Perl today than 15 years ago but its importance has waned.
You really haven't addressed the issue. You simply did that dance that developers do when debating a topic. e.g. "This one is too new..." I remember when the iPhone was released, that similar misguided logic was used. Microsoft owns 20% market share and Blackberry is huge. Android was junk in its first couple of releases. Now they rule the world.
Languages like Python will have a problem because Swift and Go, for example, provide performance and type inferencing. They both just need lots of 3rd party packages. Something like a well-done cross platform F# could also prove popular. Higher level programming means safer code.
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#197Julia? Now you're just making me laugh. Julia has a lot of potential but won't even begin to scratch Python for about 5 more years. Scientific programming is very very addicted to its tools. There is a reason even SciPy (for Python) is compiled Fortan (yes Fortan!) code. R is king for data science and the only reason it lost ground to Python is that R is a one trick pony compared to jack of all trades Python.
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe you think you "comprehend" his point because you decide to interpret it in your own way. But it was not coherent (and honestly I'm not even sure if that was a snark in there or not, mostly because it was incoherent).
No, it was interpreted pretty much correctly, except for the Perl part, which I should clarify. Perl is definitely dead, I think most people know that. The link was posted to illustrate that other links from that site were painting incorrect picture.
How is a tool like Perl dead when it's still heavily used on hundreds of thousands of machines all over the world? Is C dead as well? I would say, a tool is dead when it's no longer in wide use. Perl is hardly in that category quite yet.
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
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,…
> Though it is strong in data-heavy environments (with all it's issues nonetheless). Which is why numpy and scipy are so full-featured and pretty damn fast.
Techincally, Numpy and SciPy are C and Fortran extensions to Python, not Python code.
Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=perl Showing 1-10 of 220,528 Perl jobs And you know, Perl is dead. Basically, Python gave a choice to a lot of people to either invest time into 3.x without any important improvements or to keep using 2.7 and invest time playing with other languages. Which in turn accelerated Python's decline and raised questions about it dying, promoting the idea even more. But there is no need to…
... python 3 is a really a fairly small effort to learn when you know python 2. You'll learn most of what you need to know in a few days, tops. This comment feels extremely disingenuous
You don't invest time to learn it, you invest time by writing or converting code.