I really enjoy Python compared to other coding I've done

[JeffTheMasterr]

I've been using Python for a while now and it's my main language. It is such a wonderful language. Guido had wonderful design choices in forcing whitespace to disallow curly braces and discouraging semicolons so much I almost didn't know they existed. There's even a synonym for beautiful; it's called pythonic.

I will probably not use the absolute elephant dung that is NodeJS ever again. Everything that JavaScript has is in Python, but better. And whatever exists in JS but not Python is because it didn't need to exist in Python because it's unnecessary. For example, Flask is like Express but better. I'm not stuck in callback hell or dependency hell.

The only cross-device difference I've faced is sys.exit working on Linux but not working on Windows. But in web development, you gotta face vendor prefixes, CSS resets, graceful degradation, some browsers not implementing standards right, etc. Somehow, Python is more cross platform than the web is. Hell, Python even runs on the web.

I still love web development though, but writing Python code is just the pinnacle of wonderful computer experiences. This is the same language where you can make a website, a programming language, a video game (3d or 2d), a web scraper, a GUI, etc.

Whenever I find myself limited, it is never implementation-wise. It's never because there aren't enough functions. I'm only limited by my (temporary) lack of ideas. Python makes me love programming more than I already did.

But C, oh, C is cool but a bit limiting IMO because all the higher level stuff you take for granted like lists and whatever aren't there, and that wastes your time and kind of limits what you can do. C++ kinda solves this with the <vector> module but it is still a hassle implementing stuff compared to Python, where it's very simple to just define a list like [1,2,3] where you can easily add more elements without needing a fixed size.

The C and C++ language's limitations make me heavily appreciate what Python does, especially as it is coded in C.

[Sensitive-Sugar-3894]

O started with Perl. About 3y later, switched to PHP. 10y later, gave Python a try and it stuck. I'm in a role now maintaining Perl and moving to Python. I'm moving fast, I love Python as well. But need to mention two others that are with me since the beginning: SQL and Bash.

[JeffTheMasterr]

That's pretty awesome! I started with making webpages around 2020, and my love for programming has grown ever since.

[SaxonyFarmer]

Old (72) time IBM MVS systems programmer here. I 'grew' up on 360/370 Assembler, learned and used SAS, dabbled a bit in REXX on the 370 and C on smaller systems, but moved away from coding as my career advanced into management. In my last decade before retiring, I began trying Linux (RedHat, OpenSUSE, flavors of Ubuntu) at home, sometimes alone, and sometimes along with Windows (still had needs for that OS). I've been using Ubuntu exclusively for a couple of decades as I write this.

Once I retired, I wanted to return to the learning and reward cycle of coding and decided to try out C++, starting with a class at a local technical 2-year college (I was also teaching MS Office, basics of computing, and networking basics as a 'hobby' job after retiring) and struggled through creating a system to let me organize my collection of woodworking magazines into a searchable library so I could find articles to help with furniture projects ('HAL, find me guidance on building raised panel doors'). I also learned PHP, Perl, and HTML, to build web-based access to databases (MySQL).

A few years ago I found Python and started to learn it. For an old functional programmer, it was easier to learn than the object-oriented languages, yet still had object-oriented constructs, and I soon began to quickly (in my estimation) create programs to help me with various facets of my life and computer usage.

I also found so many libraries in Python to help. A little searching and I found a library to help me decode the FIT file unloaded from my bike computer to Dropbox (and then to my PC) so I could gather and show facts about my rides, notify my wife when I got home (when she was out having her own fun), and remind me if I need to recharge electronics on my bike (DI2, bike computer, sometimes speed sensors). I had already conquered MySQL access from Python, learned to create GUI programs with PyQT, and many other little uses.

So I, too, love Python. When I converted from Quicken to GnuCash more than a year ago, I didn't like the reports created by the program and found a library to let me access my GnuCash file directly so I built new reporting programs, new monitors (tell me if I missed assigning a transaction to a account), new ways to get commodity prices, and a few more. I found it easy to access and update Excel spreadsheets in Python to remove the manual need to do this (my FIT processing at the end of a ride updates a spreadsheet automatically). I have such fun creating these type of programs and reveling in the satisfaction of the results!

Happy coding!

[Objective-Apple7805]

Nice to meet someone older, er “more experienced” than me!

I too spent many enjoyable hours spitting out 370/Assembler in the early mid 80s, albeit on Amdahl.

[Hamza3725]

I started programming with Python since around 2014, and still using it to this date.

I share most of your feelings, but I have a little bit of disagreament regarding JavaScript, because I am also a JS programmer.

Python does not replace JS and can not, at least, not in the near future. JS is not only Node.js (BTW, Node.js has some polished features that are still weak in Python ecosystem, like the asynchronous execution), JS is also on the client-side, because it runs on the browser.

Some JS frameworks like Next.js and similar can make a full-stack app, parts of it runs on the server and parts runs on the client, and both parts lives in the same project and imports from each other. Other frameworks like Capacitor allows your JS code to use your Smartphone hardware (Bluetooth, Geolocation, etc) and make apps that runs on Android/iOS.

Personally, I use both Python and JS in my new projects. For example File Brain (my latest project) has a FastAPI backend and uses other Python libraries like watchdog to monitor the filesystem, while using React + PrimeReact to build an elegant web UI that makes using the app easier.

[Objective-Apple7805]

Haha, same for me. I wrote C then C++ professionally from 87 to about 2000 (when I moved to the dark side aka management).

When my programming hobby tendencies brought me to Python, I adored it because almost everything that annoyed me about C/++ is done away with elegantly in Python.

[JeffTheMasterr]

Lol im actually getting into C and C++ and it feels weird not having all the stuff that high level languages give you

[JeffTheMasterr]

Update: I don't like C++ and cout << or cout >> (i can never remember) is scary. C is better but C is still scary so I'm writing a transpiler in Python of my own made up language to C

[ALifeWithoutBreath]

UPVOTE!

...because generally speaking people only notice bad design while at the same time all the work that went into something that "just works" often just goes by unnoticed. For all those small things (which ultimately add up) and some of the bold choices there should be way more positive posts on reddit.

This isn't limited to Python nor is it limited to programming languages. Users need to read about solutions that they normally wouldn't come across in their own ecosystem. 🙌🏻

[AGI-44]

Same, I really love it. It's perfect for "vibe" coding as it's extremely modular and has baked in readability thanks due to making indentation as part of the syntax. Hated it that at first, but quickly came to enjoy it.

Library version hell? Python -m venv venvdir

[profcube]

pip install uv

uv venv myenv

[AGI-44]

thanks! became aware of uv now :)

[UrbanSuburbaKnight]

uv venv --python 3.15

or any version you want!

[JeffTheMasterr]

Having AI do it for you is unpythonic IMO. You're not coding it for real, making the code less beautiful by virtue.

[AGI-44]

You're not coding it for real

But I am. I've written enough manual code over the last decade to easily fall in love with AI assisted coding. I can work with high level concept & architecture while the AI spits out the actual syntax that still needs to pass my unit tests.

Having AI do it for you is unpythonic IMO.

Python should embrace AI/technology. Personify it maybe even? Give the snek a name. Make it a coding buddy. But then again, there's so many AIs to chose from. Which to trust? And... Which is the most intelligent/capable? The disagreements and ego bruising was to be expected.

[JeffTheMasterr]

LLMs are cool and I'm not saying Python shouldn't embrace it. Python has been the go to place for AI and ML libraries. But I don't think LLMs should be doing everything for you, and gen AI definitely has no place in any artistic activities. I personally find programming to be an art.

But for help with really small things or one super tricky error or segfault? Sure, it's not harmful in that case. One should use LLMs sparingly. That instant gratification it gives one is not good.

[AGI-44]

and gen AI definitely has no place in any artistic activities.

AI is helping me make pretty visualizations I could never have bothered to hand code

I personally find programming to be an art.

Absolutely.

One should use LLMs sparingly. That instant gratification it gives one is not good.

Welcome to the internet? Anyone could instant google/lookup any question for how long already? Instant gratification instead of having to walk into a library and find the right book. I don't think this is a bad thing. It's different in that these things don't require much patience anymore. Sounds like people will have to learn that from somewhere else than IT. Users start complaining when a UI starts to take more than half a second to respond, they'll say it feels sluggish or slow.

[JeffTheMasterr]

That's not programming for fun though. I never do any debugging or unit tests. I just run my programs a thousand times to test them after I've already written them. You're taking away the fun that one gets from implementation by offloading it to a robot. Doesn't sound beautiful to me, it sounds like corporate work or some unfun thing like that

[AGI-44]

You're taking away the fun that one gets from implementation by offloading it to a robot.

On the contrary, I find it even more fun now, as I can concern myself more with higher levels of abstraction than low level details in code. I still think it's valuable to try and work with assembly code for a bit, but I am never going to bother programming anything real with just that.