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Ask HN: Why did Python win?

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Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#631

Post by sanderjd »

danShumway wrote: post #474
vonwoodson wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolutely not a meme, it's [PEP 20]( https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/ ). Just because some people don't take it seriously, it's definitely a part of the language's soul.

I'm from the outside looking in so don't take me too seriously because I tried Python and bounced off of it; there's very likely elegant parts of the language that I never really internalized because I didn't spend enough time working with it. But speaking as someone who tried Python because I agree with principles like "have one right way to do things" and "be explicit", my initial impression working with language i…

For what it's worth, I have come around to really enjoying the more recent versions of python, and it's what I'm writing most at the moment, but I totally agree with you here. I don't think of python as being explicit and having only one way to do things. I think that's a pretty inevitable result of trying to both add new things and also keep older things for compatibility.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#632

Post by deafpolygon »

eddy_chan wrote: post #286
r_thambapillai wrote: post #53

Python ended up 'specializing' in data contexts, thanks to Numpy / Pandas, and as a result, ended up becoming the first exposure to programming than anyone doing data stuff had. That was millions of people. In that space, it had no competitors. Ruby ended up 'specializing' in web dev, because of Rails. But when Node and React came out, Ruby on Rails had to compete with Nodejs + React / MERN as a way of building a web…

Today I learnt I'm fucking old. My first web programming exposure was Perl CGI scripts

Me too.. learned it in college.. use CGI;

It was fun.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#633

Post by sam0x17 »

The real reason python won in my opinion is it has been a default install on most linux distros for decades. A ton of the groundbreaking ML research (especially in the 2000s and 2010s) was done in government labs and DoD settings where it is extremely difficult to get external software approved/installed, yet there was python sitting there already installed on every single DoD Red Hat machine. So a lot of research code ended up getting written in python as a prototype and then improved with C++ in the speed-sensitive bits, and before you know it, Python = ML.

Being a default install also has a lot of barrier-to-entry advantages in other settings, particularly in academia where there are similar (but usually not nearly as strict) bureaucratic restrictions on installing things, etc.

source: was a DoD computer science researcher focusing on ML for several years and witnessed people reach for python because they were still waiting for months, sometimes years for whatever software package or language to be installed / approved by security/IT and had no other dev tools

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#634

Post by cdchn »

danmur wrote: post #602
cdchn wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the best bits of Perl were kinda trash that Python was smart to avoid.

Yeah for sure, the PERL influence is why I dislike Ruby. Makes it really hard to read if you haven't been doing it constantly.

Python's clean, obvious syntax is what drew me to it. They actively decide to not do things because it detracts from the cleanliness of the syntax. Very often, less is more. My biggest fear is Python might be forgetting this, which I see with the sort of things like := operator, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#635

Post by zgs »

In what way is Python a titan? It's a nice enough language & I've done real world projects in it.

Lua is simpler and, with LuaJit, much faster and far more C compatible.

C is still very widely used and generally comes above Python in the "best" language lists.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#636

Post by a_bonobo »

ImaCake wrote: post #320
TuringNYC wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> R, SSPS, Matlab... I'd immediately throw out "competitors" that cost hundreds of dollars to use. https://www.mathworks.com/pricing-licensing.html Academic pricing is $275/yr and normal is almost a thousand a year. Then you pay for modules on top.

Yes, and this is why R has become so dominant in the data and statistics spaces. R is free, and has gained so much momentum that it often has packages that no other language has. Yesterday I found out that there was just no way to easily reproduce mgcv::gam in python. There are loads of similar examples. As someone who likes both R and Python, and had the misfortune to learn Stata; I am very glad to see R winning ove…

R even has packages to read in NanoSIMS data! [1]

There are perhaps a hundred NanoSIMS machines in the world as they're extremely expensive [2]. Yet we have an R package on CRAN to analyse their data!

[1] https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/lans2r/vignettes/lan... [2] This 2017 reviews says there are 42 machines: https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1398172

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#637

Post by stevebmark »

Python didn't win, but it is popular in the data / ML / AI territory, and that ecosystem is attracting lots of developers. It's not about the quality of the language.

Ruby is everyone's favorite toy: Fun to play with, and you shouldn't do anything serious with it.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#638

Post by bjt12345 »

From my experience back then, it was about the libraries, not the language. I think this still is the case today.

Back in the day, Perl had all the libraries and they were easy to install and worked well, then Python overtook this had all the libraries. Ruby never really had enough libraries to compete against Python.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#639

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

Python was the first language I learned, way back in 2010.

Between 2010 and now, among "backend" languages I've picked up and played around with there's been Java, C, C++, Haskell, Scheme, Racket, Prolog, Forth, Go, C#, and Rust. You could throw bash, JavaScript and Verilog onto that pile if you want extra oomph - and indeed I switched from bash to fish last year, because it was just a much better language.

So when a tool shows me a decisive advantage, I do switch. But nothing so far has done so for Python for me. I just don't see any decisive reason to switch when I already think in Python.

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