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Python overtakes JavaScript as most questioned language on StackOverflow

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Re: Python overtakes JavaScript as most questioned language on StackOverflow

#3
Seems like the most difficult programming is no longer cache invalidation and naming things. Its now about strings, and to duplicate arrays ... The stats are skewed because hordes of beginners. Mainly driven by what schools teaches and what languages has the most hype. That said Python is huge . Damn you significant white space.

Re: Python overtakes JavaScript as most questioned language on StackOverflow

#5

Is it happening because of Python getting more popular or getting more complicated to use?

Probably both. Python ecosystem is expanding super fast. Look what is happening in data-science. Newborn Python libraries getting outdated too soon just like in JS ecosystem.

Re: Python overtakes JavaScript as most questioned language on StackOverflow

#6

Is it happening because of Python getting more popular or getting more complicated to use?

15 years of Python here, started in 2.4. Day to day Python is not more complicated to use. It's actually easier due to many bugs fixes, quality of life features and better error messages.

However, Python does provide more tools to do more complicated things (async, type hints, etc), but that's not what most people use. They actually don't even know about it, and don't have to care. So it's not the questions you see on SO.

Python has gotten much, MUCH more popular, and we are currently facing a wave of new beginners. Particularly from schools (it's now the default teaching language in most countries) and from loads of workers that can benefit from manipulating data with programming and are attracted to Python for this.

It is precisely because Python is still easy that it's that popular: it doesn't benefit from massive existing code bases like Java or accidental monopoly like JS. We just have a lot of people creating a lot of libs for pretty much everything, because everybody can do it.

I also think the aesthetic of the language plays a big role. Python has been designed to allow you to dev with it with just MS notepad if you have to. It means you don't need to learn about a gigantic and complicated ecosystem to be productive with it (although it does exist): it's a huge help for all those people that are just getting started or not a programmer at heart. It's also harder to create very ugly code because you don't know what you are doing, and if you do, the result will not be as bad as with other languages because Guido made sure of it.

It's also why you don't get multi-line lambdas. Everything is a compromise.

Re: Python overtakes JavaScript as most questioned language on StackOverflow

#7
post #3

Seems like the most difficult programming is no longer cache invalidation and naming things. Its now about strings, and to duplicate arrays ... The stats are skewed because hordes of beginners. Mainly driven by what schools teaches and what languages has the most hype. That said Python is huge . Damn you significant white space.

I often say that Python is the best at nothing, but pretty good at most things. And hence it became huge by the sheer appeal of being versatile. Life is short and most people needing to program are not programmers. Also many programmers didn't start as such, and were simply looking for an easy way to solve a task.

Re: Python overtakes JavaScript as most questioned language on StackOverflow

#8
It just means that almost all trivial questions about JS have been asked and answered, now it's Python's time.

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Also I bet that if each language's words were compared to the overall vocabulary for SO, or at least to the cumulative one for these languages, the differences would stand out more.

And of course, the usefulness of a word cloud visualization is highly dubious to me.

Re: Python overtakes JavaScript as most questioned language on StackOverflow

#9
post #7
post #3

Seems like the most difficult programming is no longer cache invalidation and naming things. Its now about strings, and to duplicate arrays ... The stats are skewed because hordes of beginners. Mainly driven by what schools teaches and what languages has the most hype. That said Python is huge . Damn you significant white space.

I often say that Python is the best at nothing, but pretty good at most things. And hence it became huge by the sheer appeal of being versatile. Life is short and most people needing to program are not programmers. Also many programmers didn't start as such, and were simply looking for an easy way to solve a task.

Bingo. When you just need to get something done, Python is great. Some quick googling to find the right libraries for the task, and then some caveperson programming, and the deal is done.

Outside of lisps, I find Python to be one of the simplest syntaxes, so the only effort is the logic to solve the problem.

Re: Python overtakes JavaScript as most questioned language on StackOverflow

#10

Is it happening because of Python getting more popular or getting more complicated to use?

Coming from Perl, Python library documentation makes me want to tear my eyes out. No I don’t want a cutesy fucking module homepage, I want reference documentation with some examples. Authoring PyDoc was the worst experience too. No I don’t want to install and configure a static site generator in order to have rich text documentation.
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