Everyone loves programming in Python! You disagree? But it's the fastest growing, says Stack Overflow Python, which ranks consistently as one of the most popular programming languages, is the fastest growing major programming language, according to coding community site Stack Overflow. Stack Overflow's metric here is visits to website posts tagged "Python" compared to posts tagged with other programming languages – …
Reg Event Geeks have often enjoyed a fractious relationship with non-techies, but nowhere near as toxic as their relationships with other geeks who dare to have slightly different tech preferences.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/01/why_is_that_geeks_favourite_enemies_areother_geeks
Very revealing, so many of the comments on this topic. I usually find myself moderately impressed with the overall quality of comments on most articles on El reg—certainly fewer nitwits and outright trolls than most other sites.
But there's a surprising amount of tosh been written BTL on the Python survey, and a lot of it smells like blinkered fanboi-ism on the one hand and poorly informed snobbery on the other. I don't see much justification for statements that are inordinately defensive of Python any more than for people saying it's newbie rubbish (often for reasons, when given, that don't stack up very well). I don't code much these days but have been through Basic, Pascal, Delphi, Clipper, C, Ada, C++, PHP and Python at different times for different tasks, just like many reading this now, I suspect.
Surely the point is that of a couple of dozen top languages, which span a number of different approaches and features with many varied strengths and some weaknesses, Python has its place? It has some excellent features, arguably ideal for quick, crisp development where sheer performance is not a priority but you still need versatility: it's at least a useful language to have in your back pocket, and for some development environments perhaps a perfectly reasonable first choice.
The vociferous polarisation of argument therefore seems frankly pointless. If you visit the workshop of an engineer, builder, carpenter, electronics engineer, they will have a big toolboard—many, many different tools which they know how to use for different and specific purposes. Look at any physicist and see how many different types of math s/he deploys to approach different problems, from tensors to topology and points between.
Why should coding be any different?
Why should coding be any different?
Because choice of language becomes a religious debate. You can see it in the comments that have come before yours. Anyone questioning aspects of Python or simply stating "not my cup of tea" for any reason are massively down-voted. That is cult like behaviour and displays all that is wrong with aspects of the IT community. Shit like that is simply counterproductive.
Python is great for some things and mediocre for others. It is likely popular because it is free and can lend its hand to pretty much anything given the frameworks available and ease of wrapping libraries written in other languages. It is a one stop shop and that will appeal to people. "I can do anything in Python". You certainly can, but it will be a Jack of all Trades though not necessarily master of none. Let us not forget that some time ago there was a cult of Java.
"Why should coding be any different?"
"Atari or Amiga?"
"PC or Mac?"
"Windows or Unix?"
(I'll get downvoted for that last one than a greyhound on steroids...)
Folk like to justify that which they have chosen as correct.
(For the record, I had an Atari, but missed the games on the Amiga, I don't see the distinction these days and have both, at home Windows for games, at work Unix for work...)
A coder drone types in a trivial and "clever" subroutine, then too often goes all "I'm-An-Artist" full of themselves. Overthinking programming languages is a clear sign of the same sort of mindset. Photographers and their camera choices are the even-worse example of the same thing. Most other professions are less prone to this sort of thinking. I'm not sure what it is.
I mention this only in the hope that some might recognize it in themselves, and tone it down a bit.
Asking Stack Overflow which posts get tagged with which language is like looking at the airplanes that returned from battle in WWII to determine where more armor is needed. It looks at the wrong thing. SO is known as the place to get help with Python. If I'm looking for Perl help, I wouldn't go there, but a Perl forum. Similarly with a number of other languages.
In my career as a consultant, I go to new shops and have to ask what language I should be writing security and system admin scripts in. Thus far, I've never been *permitted* Python, because I was the only one who even began to know it, or it wasn't installed on the systems I needed to run code on. I've nearly always been allowed to use Perl because everyone knows it and it is consistently available on all systems. Those few times when Perl wasn't an option, POSIX awk + POSIX sh was the language pair I had to use.
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