Ask HN: Why did Python win?

Post by psunavy03 » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 1:51 AM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #439

mr_toad wrote: post #432

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> There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it. There’s not even one obvious flavour of Python to use.

It's hard for me to name a problem domain that doesn't have 3 different python packages doing the same thing three different ways, each more clever and less understandable than the last.

Post by Izkata » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 1:55 AM UTC

kstrauser wrote: post #317

KerrAvon wrote: post #263

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That sounds trivial? I mean, you can do that in C, what’s surprising about it? I have never found Python as nice to use as you seem to have, but Ruby always fit like a glove. I’ve written Python since 1999 and I still would rather use almost anything else. It’s so labored to do anything complex. You can build worlds in Ruby in the time it takes you to align indentation properly for a single class in Python.

> That sounds trivial? I mean, you can do that in C, what’s surprising about it? Here's the C version of it: #include int addFive(int num) { return num + 5; } int call(int(*func)(int), int value) { return func(value); } int main() { printf("%d\n", call(addFive, 10)); return 0; } It's still manageable, but not nearly so simple. Even Perl doesn't let you escape having to consider pointers and references: sub addFive {…

  int call(int(*func)(int), int value) {
      return func(value);
  }

  int call(int func(int), int value) {
      return func(value);
  }

Post by JohnBooty » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 1:57 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #473

mdbauman wrote: post #404

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Back when I decided it was time to add a scripting language, Perl and Python seemed like the obvious choices, and in my mind were equally good options. I asked my best friend which I should choose, and he more or less said, "You can't go wrong with either one, but when you ask for help Perl people are assholes and Python people are nice." I can't confirm his thoughts on Perl and I haven't interacted much with Ruby, b…

The only ruby person i've met was insistent that ruby was the one true way and he trued to force it into everything. That attitude turned me off. Of course I already knew Python, and so did the rest of my team so we had been doing tools in Python (the guy wasn't on my team), but until he pushed ruby into places where python would have been better (import a Python library rather than shell to out to a program) I was w…

    The only ruby person i've met was insistent that ruby was the one true way

Post by no_wizard » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 2:02 AM UTC

germandiago wrote: post #523

bluGill wrote: post #482

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C++ and Python are not competitors. Sure both are Turing complete so you can implement anything in either. However if you should is a different question. Python is very difficult to maintain when you program goes over 100k lines of code, while the static type system of c++ is good for millions. C++ compiles to fast binary code, while Python is typically 60x slower for logic (though often Python calls a fast algorithm…

As a person who uses C++, I must say something that also applies, somewhat, to Java. We have all the cool kids like Kotlin, Rust, etc. However, when it is about finishing a project, beating C++ or Java ecosystems is almost impossible. Besides that, C++ has improved a lot over time. It still has its warts and knives but you can code very reasonable C++ with a few guidelines and there are also linters, and -Wall -Wextr…

Post by gaganyaan » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 2:04 AM UTC

twobitshifter wrote: post #527

qsort wrote: post #76

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Numpy is certainly amazing, but there are tons of competitors in the data/scientific space, which pure "A-type" data scientists tend to prefer: R, SSPS, Matlab... The difference is that Python doesn't entirely suck as a general-purpose language. Sure, you might have better options, but it's still reasonable to write almost anything in Python. Other scripting languages like Ruby, JS and Lua are probably a little bit b…

I would just add that for scientific scripting Julia is usually nicer to program in than the combo of numpy and Python. Julia is fast enough on its own that you can do the matrix calculations directly and it supports real mathematic matrix operators. It’s also a great type based design that makes using packages magical.