Why We Choose Python • Hacker News Board

Re: Why We Choose Python

#31

Post by SixFeetUp » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 5:12 PM UTC

fvox13 wrote: post #16

robomartin wrote: post #13

One business metric that is worth considering is the cost of putting together a Python team vs., say, PHP. Here "cost" doesn't mean salaries as much as it means "cost function" or "difficulty score". Get away from Silicon Valley's reality distortion field and I think Python, today, might still have some issues in this regard. I am not talking about finding one developer. I am talking about finding one, scaling to fiv…

Well, to be fair, SixFeetUp is based in Fortville, Indiana (a bit far away from the "reality distortion field" you mention). Also, with more and more colleges switching to Python as their Computer Science major's language of choice, finding a team of competent Pythonistas is getting easier. I would think that it helps tremendously to be able to hire remote workers (especially since a town of 4,000 probably won't have…

Hah, Fortville is on the outskirts of Indianapolis, so we have a robust base of developers. Indiana's colleges produce a ton of IT students as well. We do also use remote developers, we are actually looking for a Python developer and a sys admin. Devs can be remote, the sys admin needs to be local. http://www.sixfeetup.com/company/jobs

Also some of the big local companies like to use Python including Angie's List.

Re: Why We Choose Python

#32

Post by johnsoft » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 5:14 PM UTC

mercurial wrote: post #3

I love Python, but it's a rubbish article I regret to have upvoted. > Python is robust This paragraph does not feature a word about robustness. There are mentions of speed and scalability and some sort of benchmark showing a case where Python is faster than Ruby or PHP. Conclusion: "It's also very fast". The rest is less terrible but does not mention any of Python's shortcomings.

Are there any widely-used languages that aren't robust? That seems like kind of shallow praise.

Re: Why We Choose Python

#33

Post by xradionut » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 5:15 PM UTC

MostAwesomeDude wrote: post #26

xradionut wrote: post #6

I thought that Google was migrating to more towards complied languages, (C++, Java, Go), and away from Python?

Haha, no. We absolutely write new Python code daily and it's one of our core languages.

Thanks for the update. I was concerned that Guido leaving Google meant more than just Guido leaving Google.

Re: Why We Choose Python

#34

Post by pyre » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 5:15 PM UTC

xradionut wrote: post #6

I thought that Google was migrating to more towards complied languages, (C++, Java, Go), and away from Python?

Probably depends on what section of the company you are in. Some probably never use Python, while others may make heavy use of it. I've heard claims ranging from "it depends," to "mostly C++ / Java," to "only Python as a glue language."

Re: Why We Choose Python

#35

Post by davidroberts » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 5:17 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #30

davidroberts wrote: post #12

I can vouch for 'easy to learn': if you can already program in another language, learning Python is like being reintroduced to an old friend who has grown up quite a bit since you last met him.

I found the opposite. For example, I find it extraordinarily frustrating not to be able to know what kind of object something is by looking at the point in code where it is created; something like variable = somefunction(inputParameter) where variable did not exist before leaves me having to look up the documentation of somefunction to know what kind of object it is returning.

Hopefully, whoever defined somefunction did something like this:

  def somefunction(inputParameter):
      '''
      inputParameter: List of seven positive integers
      representing a poker hand
      Returns: A positive integer used to score that hand
      relative to all other possible hands, better hands
      receive higher scores.
      '''

Re: Why We Choose Python

#36

Post by pyre » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 5:18 PM UTC

pmelendez wrote: post #19

mertd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ratings The ratings are calculated by counting hits of the most popular search engines. The search query that is used is +" programming" I wonder why BASIC is so popular :)

Funny thing... that has a bias over syntax complexity of the language, easier to pick (and IMO better quality) languages wouldn't require to google about features that often. No wonder why Java is the first.

They are using "number of searches people initiate," but "number of hits in the search engine." I would think that the number of hits in the search engine wouldn't be a function of how often one is required to Google for an answer.

Re: Why We Choose Python

#37

Post by calvinhp » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 5:21 PM UTC

dazzawazza wrote: post #7

caioariede wrote: post #2

And one of the best features of Python: The community The Python community allied with the good programming habits (aka PEP 8) really does the difference.

I LOVE PEP8. There it is I said it. I love that I can look at Python code I wrote eight years ago and it looks like I wrote it yesterday (apart from the fact I've got better and working with python). Even better I can look at someone else's code and if they've bothered to follow PEP 8 I am straight in, understanding the code and not their formatting. It removed a cognitive load that in C++ just kills me. It's bloody…

I couldn't agree more, we actually posted on that a while back as well. We are huge code standards fans.

http://www.sixfeetup.com/blog/why-pep8-for-plone-development

Re: Why We Choose Python

#38

Post by xaa » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 5:24 PM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #24

saosebastiao wrote: post #21

The thing that keeps pulling me toward python is the ecosystem. NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, Mapnik, Cython, PyPy, IPython, Jython, Sage, PyQt/PyGTK, PyCuda/PyOpenCL. I rarely have trouble finding a tool that I need. It is frustrating, because Ruby and Java are the standards where I work, and Clojure/Haskell are my favorite new toys. But I refuse to program in Java, and none of the others have ecosystems anywhere near as aw…

I agree about the awesome range of libraries for Python. But, in Clojure, doesn't access to the all the JVM libraries make up for this?

No, because JVM numeric libraries are awful, and, because the Clojure community leans toward things like web development instead of scientific computing, there are seldom Clojure wrappers available for them. Incanter, for example, isn't even maintained anymore.

It is a shame, because Clojure is a better language.

Re: Why We Choose Python

#39

Post by robomartin » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 5:29 PM UTC

fvox13 wrote: post #16

robomartin wrote: post #13

One business metric that is worth considering is the cost of putting together a Python team vs., say, PHP. Here "cost" doesn't mean salaries as much as it means "cost function" or "difficulty score". Get away from Silicon Valley's reality distortion field and I think Python, today, might still have some issues in this regard. I am not talking about finding one developer. I am talking about finding one, scaling to fiv…

Well, to be fair, SixFeetUp is based in Fortville, Indiana (a bit far away from the "reality distortion field" you mention). Also, with more and more colleges switching to Python as their Computer Science major's language of choice, finding a team of competent Pythonistas is getting easier. I would think that it helps tremendously to be able to hire remote workers (especially since a town of 4,000 probably won't have…

I prefer Python for a lot of reasons. The reality of the matter is that, by some accounts, there are over ten times more PHP programmers than Python.

This is changing, which is good.

Re: Why We Choose Python

#40

Post by dataoverflow » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 5:29 PM UTC

> Python is now one of the fastest-growing programing languages

I love Python but looking at the long term trends on TIOBE I am not sure I'd agree with the above statement http://www.tiobe.com/content/paperinfo/tpci/images/tpci_tren...