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Ask HN: Why did Python win?

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Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#211

Post by moonchrome »

cutler wrote: post #122
moonchrome wrote: post #67

Ruby was never similar in popularity to Python. It was just a fad in webdev circles. I've rarely seen ruby before RoR and I've seen python all over. Python was popular as a teaching language, how it gained a foothold in academia. I remember 20 years ago when I was starting out it was popular for game scripting (Lua was more embeddable but python was also used). plenty of first class interfacing methods to native code…

You're forgetting the period of Ruby's popularity in the devops world, especially Chef and Puppet.

I think that's just building on RoR hype in that same field. Puppet even moved away from Ruby AFAIK.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#212

Post by EdwardDiego »

moonchrome wrote: post #67

Ruby was never similar in popularity to Python. It was just a fad in webdev circles. I've rarely seen ruby before RoR and I've seen python all over. Python was popular as a teaching language, how it gained a foothold in academia. I remember 20 years ago when I was starting out it was popular for game scripting (Lua was more embeddable but python was also used). plenty of first class interfacing methods to native code…

When I first looked into Ruby, pre-RoR, but only just, the stdlib docs (in English) were a gaping void compared to the Python docs. Would have been around early Python 2 days, 2.3 I think.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#213

Post by AlotOfReading »

ActorNightly wrote: post #45
AlotOfReading wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been making similar predictions longer than either of us has been alive. Remember Cobol? Basically that. 5th generation languages? Same thing, with a different definition of "describe". Ultimately, those all turned out to be dead ends while the "antiquated" languages kept improving and innovating, albeit usually by (re-)inventing things that already existed elsewhere.

You are mistaking syntax for features. C++ got popular because it managed data structures under the hood automatically. I.e, you didn't have to keep track of memory offsets or function pointers. Java got popular because it did that and also managed memory allocation under the hood automatically. Python (and Javascript) got popular because it did all of that and also managed types under the hood automatically. The fut…

The discussion isn't about C vs Python, it's about why Python won over Ruby, a language at a similar level of abstraction. Ruby is arguably even less burdensome because in many cases the libraries/frameworks do a lot of magic that would be unpythonic.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#214

Post by CuriouslyC »

qsort wrote: post #188
dekhn wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

numpy exists (somewhat indirectly) because matlab cost $$$. and now numpy is a far larger use of matlab's concepts than matlab will ever be. I haven't seen anything an "A-type" data scientist needs in R/SAS/SPSS that was intrinsic to the language and couldn't be ported to Python. I don't want a "data/scientific" language, or a "web" language, or a "UI" language- I want one language that explicitly supports all the us…

> I haven't seen anything an "A-type" data scientist needs in R/SAS/SPSS that was intrinsic to the language Not intrinsic to the language but in terms of the ecosystem, for a purely A-type data science workload R is significantly better. dplyr + ggplot vs. pandas + matplotlib isn't even remotely close. Now, obviously in the real world nothing is ever purely model work, which is why Python more than makes up for the d…

R is great when your data is already together in one place and homogenous/processed. In that instance the workflow using dplyr/ggplot is better. R the language is hot garbage though, and the libraries available for doing random things that aren't working with certain data structures, doing math or plotting are generally much worse than their python equivalents. That is the reason python dominates data engineering, and why it's pushing R out everywhere but academia.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#215

Post by yCombLinks »

izacus wrote: post #60
yCombLinks wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python is clearly the current winner. Not sure being pedantic about what it means to be a winner adds anything

If there's a winner, it's still named "Java".

I was talking in the context of the Ruby/ Python/ interpreted language world of the parent post

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#216

Post by EdwardDiego »

p1mrx wrote: post #89

Python's old as dirt; it even predates Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Python Sometimes the key to success is to just be adequate for a really long time.

> just be adequate for a really long time.

Seems to be working for Pepsi, and their killer model of "they don't have Coke, is Pepsi okay?"

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#217

Post by dekhn »

qsort wrote: post #188
dekhn wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

numpy exists (somewhat indirectly) because matlab cost $$$. and now numpy is a far larger use of matlab's concepts than matlab will ever be. I haven't seen anything an "A-type" data scientist needs in R/SAS/SPSS that was intrinsic to the language and couldn't be ported to Python. I don't want a "data/scientific" language, or a "web" language, or a "UI" language- I want one language that explicitly supports all the us…

> I haven't seen anything an "A-type" data scientist needs in R/SAS/SPSS that was intrinsic to the language Not intrinsic to the language but in terms of the ecosystem, for a purely A-type data science workload R is significantly better. dplyr + ggplot vs. pandas + matplotlib isn't even remotely close. Now, obviously in the real world nothing is ever purely model work, which is why Python more than makes up for the d…

If there is anything in R that is better, it could be ported. It's kind of different from language intrinsics that can't be easily ported. In fact I think there's a great argument for writing a standardized data processing and visual representation layer in C++, and then making it usable from all the languages. It would be nice if this was true for the notebook layer.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#218

Post by VerminOctopus1 »

worik wrote: post #68
tobinfricke wrote: post #49

When I first encountered Python, it was as an alternative to Perl. Given the choice between Perl and Python, I think it's clear why the latter won out.

> When I first encountered Python, it was as an alternative to Perl. Me too I am amazed that Python won out against Perl Perl is much easier to use. Does not have the incredibly irritating treatment of whitespace Perl was a disrupter, whereas Python was "computer sciencey". A false dichotomy but it really mattered to people

A bizarre opinion to be sure. Python is vastly more readable then Perl and is far easier to write as well, hence so many educators in schools reaching for it.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#219

Post by MassiveBonk51 »

Koshkin wrote: post #173

Jupyter (Lab) is the best thing since sliced bread. (I don't know if similar environments exist for JS or Ruby.)

There's language cores for jupyter for these languages. I can't speak on how good the experience is. Elixir has a first class notebook experience similar to Jupyter in Livebook.

https://livebook.dev/

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#220

Post by tetha »

NegativeK wrote: post #104
worik wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I first encountered Python, it was as an alternative to Perl. Me too I am amazed that Python won out against Perl Perl is much easier to use. Does not have the incredibly irritating treatment of whitespace Perl was a disrupter, whereas Python was "computer sciencey". A false dichotomy but it really mattered to people

I loved Perl. I _loved_ it. It was so much fun. It felt like vim in how you could guess weird corners of the language. But every reason that made it fun is also an actual reason why it's a nightmare unless you are very strict in how its used. Strict on things like whitespace.

I was about to say, as much as I enjoy python.

Perl is more effective than Python. You can do some pretty amazing things in Perl in a few lines. You can also do amazingly readable scripts in Perl.

But... if you aren't careful how you write perl, it's a very bad pit to fall down to.

Python just forces you to write code that's better for the team.

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