Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Python keeps growing, explained

github.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 459 posts

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#51

Post by UncleEntity »

ihatepython wrote: post #46
teekert wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started in Python, as a Biologist (hooray for Jupyter-lab, coding so visually, in small steps, with output just there is so great when starting to learn Python). I ventured into other languages every now and then. For example I tried to make an Android app in Kotlin that gets info from some API. I expect something like this but with more brackets everywhere: import request data = request.get(https://some.api/get_so…

This isn't really programming though. This is just calling out to seaborn and pandas with an unpleasant interface (Python).

Ironically, TFA claimed there are a bunch of people “not programming” in python getting real work done out there.

But, with a user name like that, I know I’m just wasting my time responding to you.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#52

Post by _glass »

I remember the evolution of Python. When I started with my brand new Ubuntu installation when Ubuntu was also very new, there were two languages, Perl and Python. Because Perl was more popular at the time I check some books in the library, and wrote some scripts. But already then the consensus was, that even though libraries are lacking (!), it is the better, cleaner language. Another big push was the bad enterprise guys, that like static typing, so C, C++, Java, vs. the hipster dynamic language guys. Some tenets were broken, speed is not as important as language concepts, that enabled fast iteration. Agile was new, and Python was very agile. There was no real alternative to Python at that time, that was as sane, and beautiful. That's the reason why we have now such a nice variety of libraries, because it is just a sane language to build on, if speed is not your business. Ruby was a contender, but not that much better in the end. Now Javascript kind of took the edge away from Python, even it wasn't for the browser and the web, Python would dominate much more. Javascript as a language is worse than Python because of its cruft, so I don't see a big rewrite of ML tooling into Javascript. Maybe Typescript.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#54

Post by _glass »

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…

As commented somewhere else in this thread, Python was clearly more ergonomic than Python, hand had a lot of mindshare exactly for this reason. I remember when Python was new and the not that professional choice, Perl was at that time for that niche. Now still I don't see a contender for a language where speed doesn't matter. Ruby has some Perlisms that really make it weird, PHP is tight to the web, and equally weird, these $s and @s are really bad for normal people. Python wins clearly when teaching somebody programming.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#55

Post by polotics »

teekert wrote: post #47
ihatepython wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really programming though. This is just calling out to seaborn and pandas with an unpleasant interface (Python).

Ok, then I'm not programming. Call it anything you want, I call it "Being productive." Or, "Saving on time spent clicking around in Excel." or "Automating the boring things." And I find it to be quite pleasant. Maybe it also doesn't help that out there, in the C++, Rust, Javascript, Go world I'm going to run into people with usernames like "ihatepython".

Don't feed the trolls! Case in point, this is a quote:

quote_from_user_ihatepython == """ ihatepython 1 day ago | parent | context | prev | next [–] | on: Moscow Metro launches longest metro circle line

    You realize that the Nazis still exist and are Ukrainian, right?
"""

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#56

Post by UncleEntity »

grog_tremor wrote: post #49
deafpolygon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, you make incorrect assumptions about me. I'm stating a fact why Python is used - the data science ecosystem in Python thrives because of well-written libraries _written in C_ under the hood AND an easy-to-use language that writes like pseudocode. If it was too slow, we'd be doing all of this in Java, the C# or maybe doing it in C/Fortran. But because of some early design decisions (Guido being on the matrix-sig h…

> it's the only way a tragically slow language like Python can keep up. Those were your words, not mine. I need not make any assumptions. I just replied listing use cases where Python shine due to its strengths, performance being mostly irrelevant. I didn't even mention data science. And although it's beyond the point, if I was to use Python, why should I care in which language a library was written? If the language…

> If the language allows libraries written in other languages, this is actually a nice feature.

That’s actually my primary use case for python, playing with C/C++ libraries in a repl because they don’t natively have one.

Sure, it takes work to wrap a library but that’s something I enjoy doing.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#57

Post by ngrilly »

It's interesting that people keep claiming that indentation-based blocks makes Python easier to learn and read. I've been teaching programming to students in banking, finance and insurance for a few years, using Python, and my experience with them is the opposite. They have been struggling with that a lot. They didn't pay too much attention to white spaces and tabs, probably because they are "invisible", and couldn't see why a statement was not executed at the end of the block, because it was not indented correctly. For me, it was obvious, because as a professional programmer, I've been trained to pay attention to details. But for most of them, it made no sense. Explicit block markers are much easier to teach.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#58

Post by UncleEntity »

mort96 wrote: post #29
deafpolygon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but with FANTASTIC libraries written in C _and FORTRAN_ ftfy - it's the only way a tragically slow language like Python can keep up. Edit: didn't forget FORTRAN

Does it matter?

Because it’s proof, PROOF!!!, that python is inferior to their favorite language.

Just wait until they learn the python interpreter is written in C…

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#59

Post by _glass »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #44
gorgoiler wrote: post #8

The comparison with Java is always a funny one. Consider this: import sys def main( args: list[str], ) -> int: sys.stdout.write(“hi\n”) return 0 sys.exit(main()) Apart from the call to write instead of print everything else there is a standard Python pattern for writing testable, type-safe arg-parsing code! It’s just that you don’t have to write testable, type-safe code if you don’t want to.

A lot of Java's verbosity isn't so much from the language, but from when the code was written. It happened to come to popularity at a time when big over-engineered Gang of Four-style design was hot . So you get a lot of code written in this over-engineered fashion where half the classes have names that end in DelegateFactoryFacadeMessengerImpl. Some of it is the language too, but modern Java can definitely be reasona…

Java is still good for several use cases, which were popular at the time, or let's say much more code was needed. Now in the Enterprise world you have much better no- or low-code tools. But in large teams all of these public/private/protected key words are quite nice. Totally unnecessary for a small codebase. But Java with its great runtime, verbose patterns is great for web server applications in large teams. I would still use it as the foundation for a tech company, but not for the Fortune500 company that needs some customization. Where is no alternative where you can find people, and has the stable properties. Maybe Rust if you have the clout as a company. Otherwise it's too expensive.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#60

Post by thephyber »

ngrilly wrote: post #57

It's interesting that people keep claiming that indentation-based blocks makes Python easier to learn and read. I've been teaching programming to students in banking, finance and insurance for a few years, using Python, and my experience with them is the opposite. They have been struggling with that a lot. They didn't pay too much attention to white spaces and tabs, probably because they are "invisible", and couldn't…

> 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.

Post reply on HN