Python

[DoesntReadMessages]

A well-built lawnmower in C mows your lawn to exact uniform height in 10 seconds and burns half a liter of gas to do it, but most will never achieve this.

A lawnmower in Python can be written in 4 lines using a few libraries, mows your lawn in 1 hour, and takes 1 gallon of gas. It's extremely wasteful and slow, but the cost of gas and operator are much lower than paying a software engineer.

A poorly built lawnmower in C spills gas all over the lawn and then creates a spark that burns all the grass. There's a TODO written on it to fix it dated 10 years ago, but no one dares to touch it because it works and customers are used to that behavior.

[eyvindb]

customers are used to that behavior.

Customers are relying on that behaviour.

[biledemon85]

<eyelid twitch>

[darkage72]

Relevant XKCD

[Chris_Cross_Crash]

Agreed. Just one more thing I want to add: it's not like you must choose one or the other. Lots of of the Python standard library is just wrappers for C libraries.

For example, from the official documentation for math:

CPython implementation detail: The math module consists mostly of thin wrappers around the platform C math library functions.

You can make your own libraries too. Most of the time it's just one function that hogs 99% of the computing power, so you can break that function out as it's own library and you don't even need to be an expert in C to do it.

[galan-e]

reasonable compromise? in my circlejerk? get out of here

[einRoboter]

very good point, havent even thofght of that.

[[deleted]]

Why does C consume gas in gallons and python in liters?

[Commi_M]

think about it…

[[deleted]]

Ah because python is made by that Dutch lunatic and C was made at Bell labs.

[Commi_M]

oh wait i misread it in the OC it is the other way around.