python is kind of an interesting language because the design philosophy is insanely retarded but they accidentally made a language that's still very useful
Timeline
Post
Remote status
Replies
7
-322/???
@d
I am tempted to say its value is in its libraries
I am tempted to say its value is in its libraries
@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
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
@d @hazlin I remember somebody at my college did a big study on if python was actually faster to implement stuff with. The answer was no. In fact it was slower. The only thing that made it useful was the gigantic ass library ecosystem it had.
So then the question becomes why do these gigantic ass ecosystems only exist for these terrible languages
So then the question becomes why do these gigantic ass ecosystems only exist for these terrible languages
@RustyCrab @d at the time, I thought it was to get people dependent on centrally managed libraries through pip. Everything else at that time required you to keep track of your own libraries.
@RustyCrab @hazlin @d >why do these gigantic ass ecosystems only exist for these terrible languages
it breeds creativity, that and python has ease of use on its side
it breeds creativity, that and python has ease of use on its side
@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
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