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Ask HN: Why did Python win?

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Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#751

Post by twobitshifter »

gaganyaan wrote: post #550
twobitshifter wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think Julia has a hard uphill battle against the "Python is the second best language for anything" effect. Julia looks pretty cool to me, but I already know Python. I'll probably learn more about it in my spare time, but I'm also never going to be able to convince my coworkers to try it out, because they also know Python and that's good enough for them. And thus Python's dominance continues.

Very true, it isn’t usually the best designed language that wins in these cases. The language just needs to be good enough like CPP and JS were. Python is nicer to write than either and with [mojo](https://www.modular.com/mojo) possibly rising in popularity, Julia will lose some of its benefits. The momentum is behind Python which is the ultimate factor.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#752

Post by gwbas1c »

simonw wrote: post #601
gwbas1c wrote: post #598

Back when I read the O'Reilly book on Ruby on Rails, it liberally referred to "Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby." That's when I realized something: The book, and thus Ruby on Rails, appealed to teenagers as their first programming language. Teenagers get very passionate about things, and emotionally involved with their choices. Python is a tool. Good tools are boring, and don't come with references to bacon and other gra…

I don't think your hunch here works. Why wasn't a teenager when they wrote that book. The Ruby community had very few teenagers involved when Rails was released. The Ruby and Rails communities did do a great job of attracting passionate, creative people. Those people weren't teenagers.

All of the great teachers that I had as a teenager were adults. They knew how to relate to teenagers, just like Why's book.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#753

Post by minorannoyance2 »

abareplace wrote: post #736
saikia81 wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not asking for help. The comments on your critique are patient, and explain how to look at things different. Just because people disagree, does not mean they 'attack's you. Honestly, your critiques seem more like opinions. The comments are pretty spot on that these are not issues. Your perspective on the default data types is off though. This is not an attack. I simply disagree with you descriptions and opini…

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Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#754

Post by hardware2win »

Buttons840 wrote: post #272
mellavora wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>New users wonder how to call functions. They form an intuition ("use parenthesis"), but it's unreliable. "Oh, parenthesis are optional--oh, parenthesis are only optional sometimes". print f"are you {sure} you need parenthesis to call a function in python" >Python is much more boring in this respect, users are more likely to form accurate intuitions. is defining a class the same as defining a function? What about fun…

Double underscores are ugly, but not surprising or frustrating. I say they are not frustrating because the language doesn't force beginners to be aware of how they work right away. Double-underscore methods are there for people to seek out when they're ready, but the language and the surrounding community doesn't push people into comprehending them. Intuition is good enough for a long time. Ruby has more focus on met…

I prefer to say that underscores mean that designers failed

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#755

Post by g8oz »

kiwijamo wrote: post #716
sharts wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Python has some of the worst API documentation I’ve ever read. Even Java puts it to shame and that is sad

Coming to Python from PHP it was interesting to see that in the PHP world I'd get 80% of my knowledge from the PHP documentation and 20% elsewhere. In the Python world it's easily the other way around. It also doesn't help that the PHP documentation is more up to date so I am using the most current info, while for Python their own docs are so bad I rely on other docs but they all vary on what version of Python it dep…

Yeah the PHP documentation is extremely pragmatic and seems designed to get you going quickly with useful examples.

The Python documentation seems to be suffering from some sort of weird snobbery. Very wordy as another comment mentioned. Examples are frequently lacking or inadequate. They seem like they're trying to compete with MSDN in "professionalism" although these days even the MSDN examples are better. There is an entire ecosystem of python tutorial websites around the web that would not exist if the documentation was as helpful as that of PHP.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#756

Post by skenderbeu »

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…

Python specialized in ease of learning and running the code. Everything else came after as a byproduct of the large user base.

One reason why I switched our team from Matlab to Python was the capabilities of the core libraries. Argparse alone sold it for us.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#757

Post by znpy »

Python has always been simpler and more linear to follow and above all way better documented.

The official python website has all you need to learn the language whereas the ruby website has very little and you often have to resort to external websites and other third parties. Ruby would definitely benefit from a polishing campaign for its documentation.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#758

Post by sfn42 »

abareplace wrote: post #736
saikia81 wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not asking for help. The comments on your critique are patient, and explain how to look at things different. Just because people disagree, does not mean they 'attack's you. Honestly, your critiques seem more like opinions. The comments are pretty spot on that these are not issues. Your perspective on the default data types is off though. This is not an attack. I simply disagree with you descriptions and opini…

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Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#759

Post by michaelcampbell »

Loeffelmann wrote: post #114
dmazzoni wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Python was popular as a general-purpose language first. After all, there was a reason people put so much effort into writing Numpy in the first place. I think a lot of people were attracted to the language design, as captured in the Zen of Python ( https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/ ), such as: Explicit is better than implicit. Readability counts. Errors should never pass silently (unless explicitly silenced)…

> There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it. This is so hilariously wrong in python though

I like also the idea of explicit>implicit, but then you see Django.

I hate significant whitespace though. I can work with it, I get it, I still don't like it.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Python win?

#760

Post by barrkel »

dmazzoni wrote: post #91
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…

I think Python was popular as a general-purpose language first. After all, there was a reason people put so much effort into writing Numpy in the first place. I think a lot of people were attracted to the language design, as captured in the Zen of Python ( https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/ ), such as: Explicit is better than implicit. Readability counts. Errors should never pass silently (unless explicitly silenced)…

I don't buy this at all. I think it's path dependent. The language differences aren't big enough to dominate over ecosystems and libraries. Ease of integration with C can make a bigger difference than significant whitespace. Etc.

Personally I think Python is an exceptionally ugly language for one as popular as it is (the magical underscore identifiers really bug me, and I think list comprehensions are deeply inferior to monadic chaining - there's a reason nobody copies them but everyone got LINQ envy). But it's clear from a perusal of code in the areas where Python dominates, data science and machine learning, that aesthetics are very far from people's minds. They'd be using Javascript if it had the libraries available.

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