Why Python keeps growing, explained • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#431

Post by goto11 » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 1:21 PM UTC

arnvald wrote: post #32

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…

> Why isn't Perl as popular as Python?

Perl was significantly more popular at one point, but it slowly lost traction while Python gradually gained traction over the years.

Better ecosystem for numeric computing is definitely a big reason for the success of Python, by the question is why Python gained a foothold in that niche in the first place. It think it is because Python is just a lot more accessible to people with different backgrounds. Perl really grew out of shell scripting as a supercharged alternative to Bash and Awk, but retaining many of the quirks for familiarity. Python on the other hand grew out of research in teaching programming to beginners.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#432

Post by CE02 » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 1:30 PM UTC

faizshah wrote: post #229

CE02 wrote: post #169

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 just want to add to this, I had this exact same experience when working with journalists and other non-technical background programmers. You’ll find everyone from philosophy PhDs to Biologists to Journalists who use pandas because its so easy to learn it and work with it. It’s amazing how you can become productive in python/pandas without any experience or even basic understanding of programming because of how acce…

I couldn’t agree more. And I must say, now that it’s being used as a bridge between technical and nontechnical talent it’s becoming ever more vital from a career perspective. Most people recognize the value of fundamental coding skills and if you’re even just above average at coding in a non-CS field, you seem magnitudes more valuable than you really are. In both industry and research, ears immediately perk up when they realize I have a background in economics but competencies in coding beyond the standard regressions in R that everyone does in econometrics. It’s hilarious because as mentioned prior, I’m rather pathetic compared to most people on this forum.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#433

Post by goto11 » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 1:43 PM UTC

pharmakom wrote: post #6

Comparing Python to Java 8 and saying it’s more readable isn’t showing much. And it’s not very portable the second dependencies with native code (which is common since pure Python is too inefficient for many tasks) are used. I think Python is popular for two reasons: - it’s believed to be beginner friendly compared to other languages. I’m not really sure why - maybe the whitespace? - it has an enormous set of librari…

> it’s believed to be beginner friendly compared to other languages. I’m not really sure why - maybe the whitespace?

Experienced programmers tend to forget how the experience was as a beginner programmer. But Python grew out of actual usability research into teaching programming to beginners. Logo is another language with the same background, but it never escaped that niche. The success of Python is because it attractive to beginners but remains a powerful tool as the programmer becomes more experienced.

Whitespace is definitely a factor - or rather the lack of redundant braces. Beginner programmer seem to really struggle with the lack of correspondence between the visual structure and the logical structure in most languages. Even experienced programmers get tripped up by erroneous indents. Python just solves this once and for all.

The lack of type annotations is also a factor. For beginners this is just an additional layer of complexity.

Scheme is great for teaching computer science students, but if you are just a regular Joe researcher wanting to get the job done, you want to write "2 + 2" like everybody else in the world, not "(+ 2 2)"

Most languages are designed to attract experienced programmers, e.g. by having C-like syntax which they may already be familiar with. But it has a cost for beginners.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#434

Post by osigurdson » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 3:21 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #295

osigurdson wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify this comment?

You mean the bit about frustration? It's just an application of the Pareto principle. That last 20% of work to make perfect software costs a lot of time. Customers (and by extension, management) do not care how pretty your code is, how perfect your test coverage is (unless your manager is a former developer, then they might have more of an opinion), they care most that you ship it . Bugs are a minor irritation compar…

Thanks. I thought that is what you meant but another possible take was that the last 20% is actually important. Getting something 80% finished is fast and then the long tail to get it to 100% is frustrating for everyone because the work, in theory is finished. I think that can happen as well.

Of course there are at least three dimensions to discuss here: internal quality, external quality and product/feature fit. Lower quality internal code eventually leads to slower future development and higher turnover as no one wants to work with the crappy code base. Lower external quality (i.e. bugs) can lead to customers not liking your product. Interestingly the relationship between internal and external quality is not as direct as one might think. Getting features out the door more quickly (at the expense of other things) can help with product fit. Essentially, like most things, this is an ongoing optimization problem and different approaches are appropriate for different problem domains.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#435

Post by di456 » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

syntheweave wrote: post #392

di456 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the features that make Python quite good at prototyping make it rather bad at auditing for safety and security What's an example that makes it bad? Is it a case of the wrong tool for the job? For example I understand that garbage collection languages shouldn't be used with real time systems like flight controllers.

What audits need most is some ability to analyze the system discretely and really "take it apart" into pieces that they can apply metrics of success or failure to(e.g. pass/fail for a coding style, numbers of branches and loops, when memory is allocated and released). Python is designed to be highly dynamic and to allow more code paths to be taken at runtime, through interpreting and reacting to the live data - "late…

Interesting. What kinds of software get this level of audit scrutiny?

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#436

Post by mharig » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 5:15 PM UTC

blensor wrote: post #173

CE02 wrote: post #169

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 hate to admit that I very often start the python repl to just do some simple calculations. I always have multiple terminals open so instead of opening a calculator I just use python in one of the terminals.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#437

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

sethrin wrote: post #400

mixmastamyk wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ruby has odd, once unique syntax that looks strange to anyone raised on C-like syntax, including js and java. Python is similar, simply removing redundant braces. So no ruby was not better at things most folks care about, i.e. being easy to learn.

You seem to have confused personal familiarity with ease of learning.

Things that are familiar are easier to learn, it’s a fact. As someone raised on math and English notation, then industry exposure. Ruby being a odd duck did it no favors.

Python definitely found footing based on its pseudocode readability. It’s gotten a bit worse recently with too many colons and features but already made it.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#438

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

sqlserver2008 wrote: post #419

mixmastamyk wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not required to use a basic editor from the early 90s, no… but it can help on a big codebase. Why handicap yourself? I make patches once in a while with nano/micro without issue. Maybe your functions are just too long, dunno. 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 req…

>Two ways to delimit blocks is redundant. It isn't redundant though because without delimiting symbols for a code block you lose the ability to have your code autoformatted in certain situations. Here's a trivial example to illustrate the point: def example(): x = 5 print("Hello world") What's the mistake here? Depending on whether the print is part of the function, it should either be indented or have a newline befo…

The first example is a syntax error, which must be fixed, and takes a second. Not a PITA, just a part of normal day to day refactoring.

I see how a formatter could help you out in this specific situation. However you are trading typing of redundant characters every few seconds and readability per minute, to avoid an issue that happens once or twice a day, per week on a mature project.

In other words we generally don’t significantly reorganize code nearly as much as reading, tweaking, adding features etc.

Readability is definitely a strength of Python, not a weakness. A lot of this is because of reduction of required notation.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#439

Post by mharig » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 8:13 PM UTC

xaitv wrote: post #35

pletnes wrote: post #11

Python keeps growing in number of users because it’s easy to get started, has libraries to load basically any data, and to perform any task. It’s frequently the second best language but it’s the second best language for anything. By the time a python programmer has «graduated» to learning a second language, exponential growth has created a bunch of new python programmers, most of which don’t consider themselves progr…

There's also the argument that at a certain scale the time of a developer is simply more expensive than time on a server. If I write something in C++ that does a task in 1 second and it takes me 2 days to write, and I write the same thing in Python that takes 2 seconds but I can write it in 1 day, the 1 day of extra dev time might just pay for throwing a more high performance server against it and calling it a day. A…

Speeding up the time critical parts with Cython or Numba or ... is rather easy.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#440

Post by thephyber » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 10:37 PM UTC

ngrilly wrote: post #70

thephyber wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Explicit block markers are much easier to teach. The point of communication is to express something in a way that the listener understands it. Simply expressing something that is comfortable or normal to the speaker is simply not useful for either party of the goal is communication.

You're right. What matters is that explicit block markers are easier to learn (from the student's perspective). Being easier to teach (from the teacher's perspective) doesn't matter as much.

My point was to express that your students need to learn to communicate with the programming language in a way that the language understands, not in a way that is comfortable for them as the “speaker”. You as the teacher should be setting that expectation.