Egregoros

@RustyCrab @hazlin there are lots of things I can do way faster in python than other languages, but I've also been using python for 12 years and I've written silly amounts of code with it. but it depends what level of abstraction you're working at. like I implemented a low level data structure with python classes a few weeks ago for fun and I just kinda stared at the screen for awhile thinking about how to even do it, when it would've been trivial in C

the ecosystem thing is because the libraries are mostly developed by people who aren't "programmers" per se, so they use the dominant thing in their domain. usually python now, but R and Julia as well. it's too expensive to hire a programmer to do it when the money is coming from grants

@hazlin it's not any one thing but the ecosystem is why a lot of people use it

if I had to articulate why I keep reaching for python I would say it's the iteration speed and the fact that most of the things I want to do are easy to do with either built in functionality or the standard library

even if I'm going to ultimately implement something in Go or C it's still useful to do a first pass in python to check my logic a lot of the time

contrary to what a lot of people say I don't find python syntax to be uniquely easy to use. it's certainly not "plain english". it's just another language with plenty of quirks. as things get more "pythonic" the syntax can become very opaque very quickly