Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Python Shouldn't Be the Top Programming Language

itprotoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 41 posts

Re: Python Shouldn't Be the Top Programming Language

#2

Post by PaulHoule »

I see Python as the BASIC of the 2020s.

It's not to knock it, but the real strength of Python is as a language that the non-professional programmer can pick up right away and use to put their non-programming skills on wheels.

Jupyter, numpy, pandas, scikit-learn and such are the center of the ecosystem for many people. You can point your finger at these people and tell them to try Julia because it is better on paper... And they will, and they won't like it and they'll go back to Python.

Re: Python Shouldn't Be the Top Programming Language

#4

Post by kzrdude »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I see Python as the BASIC of the 2020s. It's not to knock it, but the real strength of Python is as a language that the non-professional programmer can pick up right away and use to put their non-programming skills on wheels. Jupyter, numpy, pandas, scikit-learn and such are the center of the ecosystem for many people. You can point your finger at these people and tell them to try Julia because it is better on paper.…

Julia is only better on paper if you write the missing parts yourself or only trade in potential. There's just still much more ready-made libraries for Python, with more features.

Re: Python Shouldn't Be the Top Programming Language

#5

Post by toomuchtodo »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I see Python as the BASIC of the 2020s. It's not to knock it, but the real strength of Python is as a language that the non-professional programmer can pick up right away and use to put their non-programming skills on wheels. Jupyter, numpy, pandas, scikit-learn and such are the center of the ecosystem for many people. You can point your finger at these people and tell them to try Julia because it is better on paper.…

What languages do folks “graduate” to after Python?

(this was a genuine question as someone who primarily writes code in Python for fun, not professionally, and is looking to level up for fun)

Re: Python Shouldn't Be the Top Programming Language

#6

Post by 1-6 »

whatshisface wrote: post #3

> This is great if you don't mind taking the time to follow all of Python's syntactic rules. But if you just want to churn out code quickly, Python is probably not the best language. People have trouble following Python's syntactic rules?

Are they coding in Notepad.exe?

Re: Python Shouldn't Be the Top Programming Language

#7

Post by lvass »

whatshisface wrote: post #3

> This is great if you don't mind taking the time to follow all of Python's syntactic rules. But if you just want to churn out code quickly, Python is probably not the best language. People have trouble following Python's syntactic rules?

This is jarring to me. Does the author use Lisp, APL, Forth or what?

Re: Python Shouldn't Be the Top Programming Language

#10

Post by jleyank »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #5
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I see Python as the BASIC of the 2020s. It's not to knock it, but the real strength of Python is as a language that the non-professional programmer can pick up right away and use to put their non-programming skills on wheels. Jupyter, numpy, pandas, scikit-learn and such are the center of the ecosystem for many people. You can point your finger at these people and tell them to try Julia because it is better on paper.…

What languages do folks “graduate” to after Python? (this was a genuine question as someone who primarily writes code in Python for fun, not professionally, and is looking to level up for fun)

In the ‘00s I found a python/C combination very effective. All control in python, compute in C and the class mechanism easily tied things together. I would recommend this for any new heavy cpu development as the needs for each portion are so different.
Post reply on HN