321–330 of 459 posts
I'm a bit surprised to see this article on GitHub blog, it feels more like something from dev.to - looking at the surface, with little actual insights. Most of the provided reasons behind Python's popularity are true also for other languages - portable, open source, productive, big community. This can be also said about PHP, Ruby, or Perl back in 2000s. Why isn't Perl as popular as Python? I don't think it's all abou…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Creating a new venv, installing a few needed libraries that you know the names of with a simple command and writing a quick low-ceremony script that uses those libraries is frictionless in Python. Doing that repeatedly in nearly every other major language is not as easy. Some languages have a good integrated tool chain (Rust, Go) but are not as approachable and forgiving. Some are approachable but lack the friction-f…
The most similar language to Python is Ruby, not Rust or Go, and Ruby is better at the things you've listed. Which would bring us back to the previous point that it's not actually about ease of use. Someone else identified Ruby's fatal flaw as not having good C tooling, and I think that's probably accurate.
I just wish that I enjoyed using it. I've been doing a fair amount of Python work over the years because it's been required by my employers, but to be honest, I kind of hate it. I think the thing I hate the most about it is that white space is significant. It's like we travelled back in time to the early days, and picked up one the bad things about them and brought it back. I find that makes it more difficult for me…
Slashdot called and want their comment back, haha! Whitespace blocks significantly reduce redundancy and are quite elegant imnsho. If you’re having trouble with them, use a programmer's editor with indentation guides like notepad++ or geany. These are considered basic features these days. Other simple things which reduce Python annoyances are tools like pyflakes and the blue formatter.
> If you’re having trouble with them, use a programmers editor with indentation guides like notepad++ or geany.
Yes, of course. Python makes that pretty much essential, which is one of my complaints about Python. A language that requires a special editor is a language that is deficient, IMO.
There are a ton of other, more minor, aspects of Python that makes it unpleasant for me. It's not just the whitespace thing. That's just the one that grinds my gears the most, because it's the one that slows me down the most.
But note what I haven't said here -- I haven't said that Python sucks. I only said that I hate using it, despite being pretty fluent in it and having used it for years.
One thing I’d add to this conversation, though I’m certain it’s already been stated: As many have mentioned, there is a large subset of the user base that uses Python for applied purposes in unrelated fields that couldn’t care less about more granular aspects of optimization. I work as a research assistant for international finance faculty and I would say that compared to the average Hackernews reader, I’m technologi…
1) Languages like Python / R / Julia / etc. + SQL
2) PowerBI, Tableau, or similar tools
3) Excel
The number of users of those tools will be the inverse, with Excel being number 1.
If you're competent using the "stack" above, you could probably work as an analyst anywhere - given that you can pick up domain knowledge.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slashdot called and want their comment back, haha! Whitespace blocks significantly reduce redundancy and are quite elegant imnsho. If you’re having trouble with them, use a programmer's editor with indentation guides like notepad++ or geany. These are considered basic features these days. Other simple things which reduce Python annoyances are tools like pyflakes and the blue formatter.
We disagree about whitespace blocks. That's fair. > If you’re having trouble with them, use a programmers editor with indentation guides like notepad++ or geany. Yes, of course. Python makes that pretty much essential, which is one of my complaints about Python. A language that requires a special editor is a language that is deficient, IMO. There are a ton of other, more minor, aspects of Python that makes it unpleas…
A lot of folks can’t survive today without a giant ide awhile you advocate not to use something downright tiny in comparison. Do you hate working with jpeg or blender files because they require software? Rather move bits with a magnetic needle and steady hand?
Admit I was put off by it for an hour or so as well. One spring day in 2001? That afternoon I realized it as a masterstroke and didn’t write another line of c, perl, or java by choice for almost two decades.
Two ways to delimit blocks is redundant. Either one indents already or the project is a disaster.
This was already posted at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35000415 , I don't know why it didn't detect the duplicate. I'll repost my comment from there: This is a strange article. It's got the talking point about Python that we were hearing about 10 years ago - "tired of those pesky curly brackets in Java, try this new language you might not have heard of: Python!". Who reading the GitHub blog has not heard of…
import antigravity
pydoc3 antigravity
One thing I’d add to this conversation, though I’m certain it’s already been stated: As many have mentioned, there is a large subset of the user base that uses Python for applied purposes in unrelated fields that couldn’t care less about more granular aspects of optimization. I work as a research assistant for international finance faculty and I would say that compared to the average Hackernews reader, I’m technologi…
I think one reason for Python growing popularity is because it's become the default tool in some domains whether it is the best tool or not. This week our Director ordered a total rewrite of two years of work in Python. His rationale: it's what everyone else uses in this space. No reason specific to our use case, just simply to follow the herd. I realise that a large community translates into easy hiring and rich eco…
This was already posted at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35000415 , I don't know why it didn't detect the duplicate. I'll repost my comment from there: This is a strange article. It's got the talking point about Python that we were hearing about 10 years ago - "tired of those pesky curly brackets in Java, try this new language you might not have heard of: Python!". Who reading the GitHub blog has not heard of…
IMO, that example is there to show that there's less required boilerplate required in python compared to java when doing the same thing. And, in particular, none of that boilerplate really matters to what you want to do - print hello world - emphasizing the point of python being simple.