Dear Python, Why Are You So Ugly?

It was posts like this that made me decide to learn Python instead of Ruby, many years back when I was trying to decide what new scripting language to learn.

I could not find any particular programming advantage of Python over Ruby or vice versa. But from the blog posts it was obvious which community I liked much better:

Python's were to the point and technical, if making comparisons with Ruby they'd say they're both powerful languages and pick the one you like best.

Ruby's blog posts were so much more about imago, "personality" and pointing out whatever (even irrelevant) attributes to prove that their thing was better than the other. Not so much Python vs Ruby btw, but also Ruby library X vs Y, or Ruby blogger P vs Q--it felt like everything in the Ruby community was some sort of popularity contest.

On another note, I do agree that Django's website is a mess. And so are its docs, you're much better off using a great IDE like PyScripter and sail through the source code (not saying that's a good thing, on the contrary, just a bit of advice to anyone using Django ;-) ). But Django is hardly the only web framework out there.

There's also a bunch of really nice and clean Python sites out there. I really like the looks of Armin Ronacher's stuff, for instance Jinja2.

Re: Dear Python, Why Are You So Ugly?

#5

Post by scott_s » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 1:21 PM UTC

I have to strongly disagree on the documentation. The Python online documentation for the language (http://docs.python.org/reference/index.html) and the standard library (http://docs.python.org/library/index.html) are a pleasure to read and navigate. And, easily Googlable; the search "python docs x" on Google usually has the Python documentation for x as the top hit.

Re: Dear Python, Why Are You So Ugly?

#6

Post by xutopia » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 1:27 PM UTC

gitarr wrote: post #2

I prefer the style of Python to the ones of Ruby anyday. I also prefer the style of Hackernews/Reddit to the one of Digg. Digg may look better , but its style and content is what i don't like.

Your two last sentences contradict one another. I think you are mixing up style/looks with content.

Re: Dear Python, Why Are You So Ugly?

#7

Post by binarydud » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 1:47 PM UTC

There seems to be certain amount of confirmation bias in the post. He started with the premise that python resources are ugly, then found examples that proved his point. If you look at his twitter feed, he was asking for particular resources/pages that confirmed what he already thought.

Re: Dear Python, Why Are You So Ugly?

#8

Post by mpolun » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 1:48 PM UTC

Is this really a python issue, or a ruby specialty? If you look at programming resources for any language but ruby, I'll bet they're more like the python pages linked there than the ruby ones.

I suspect that ruby just has an especially beauty and design focused culture. Python is a little more old school. This might drive some people away from python, but there are other things that drive them to it.

Re: Dear Python, Why Are You So Ugly?

#9

Post by davidu » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 1:48 PM UTC

Misleading title. Link Bait.

What does the aesthetics of a web page have to do with the quality of the language?

If the usability is in question, that's one thing -- but the author isn't arguing the less "Sexy" (his words) sites are less usable, simply less attractive to him.

Who cares? If you pick a language based on the sexiness of various websites that are related to the language, you are probably not in the right role.

Re: Dear Python, Why Are You So Ugly?

#10

Post by timc3 » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 1:51 PM UTC

Probably the most stupid thing I have read in a long time. Thanks.