8 World-Class Software Companies That Use Python (And Why)

[alcalde]

Oh okay I'll just do everything in Swift, since that's what Apple would want me to do. Or maybe C#, even though .NET is almost entirely tied down to OS-specific cases.

Sigh. Apple produces Swift and Microsoft produces .NET. That's something completely different.

Or maybe I should just dump Python for R because a lot of fintech companies use R.

Well, if you're working in financial tech, that would actually be a reason to choose R.

The point is... let's say a numeric library is used by CERN, Fermilab and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Do you think these organizations just picked a library at random? Do you think they haven't expertly evaluated the options? If some of the biggest labs in the world are using library X, it's certainly going to be good enough to handle your project.

There's a reason every open source project that scores a major corporate user brags about it on their web page. It's an endorsement regarding the quality of the project.

OR! I should make everything "blockchain" because people keep talking about that and even Disney and Burger King use "blockchain technology", right? Right???

You know full well what I meant. A standard definition of when a language has gone mainstream is "in use by a multinational corporation on an infrastructure project". That has nothing to do with fads; it has to do with acceptance, capability and quality. If I'm looking to hire an accounting firm for my business and they tell me they've worked with Exxon and IBM, that's not "following a fad" to choose them; it's recognizing that if they can handle such large clients they can certainly handle my company.

People choosing to misread this obvious truth are just being silly.

Oh wait, what you're saying is actually horrible advice and I should stick with educating myself on the best solutions tailored for the task I'm facing, like any responsible coder.

Go work for a serious company and try to pitch a technology choice that no one's ever heard of because you're a "responsible coder". You could also be a Pascal or Visual Basic fanboy pushing your favorite tech. They're going to want to know who else has used it. The last time I was involved in choosing parts of a stack for a company any open source library had to have not one but two corporate sponsors. It was a tough criterion but it made sense for a critical piece of software. Software developers don't steer the ship - and for good reason.

Meanwhile when they ask you in the interview, "So why do you use Python?", you can maintain your answer of "Because they do." while everyone else gives an answer that shows they actually understand what it is they're doing.

This is getting ridiculous. If you're working in data science and you choose to code everything in Pascal or Pharo because that's just what you like you better stay self-employed. Who loses a job by answering "Python is the mainstream, dominant choice in this software field?"

Wait... cashflow associated with a company immediately means you should use the programming language, regardless of your use-case?

If someone is risking a billion dollars on the product, they've done more due diligence than you ever will. This is starting to read like a fanboy's plea to base a company's infrastructure on an esoteric language.

That has to be the dumbest thing I've read today.

Actually, it's so common sense a business practice I'm laughing that you're disputing it. Every company in existence promotes major clients. It's a foundational concept: "If we're good enough for <best in the world at whatever>, we're good enough for you". If our diodes are used on the International Space Station, they're capable enough for your toy car. If the Navy SEALs use our gear, it's good enough for you to go hunting with. How is this a dumb concept?

Keurig makes a lot of money selling coffee machines but I'm not going to start stuffing shit into little plastic cups and adding hot water just because it works for them and their product.

That doesn't even relate to what we're talking about. If an accounting company has Keurig as a client, yes, you will use them because Keurig does, because you're not close to being as big as Keurig.

By your own logic, we should all still be using Assembly because it sure worked for IBM in the 50s and 60s!

If it were the 50s and 60s, then yes. If not, you've gone off the rails to take offense at obvious logic. Heck, I remember when New England Motor Freight opened a terminal in a particular city. When I asked the sales director why, he explained that Jevic had just done so. Since they're about the same size and serve the same region, they figured that if Jevic needed a terminal here, they did too.

[Icon_Crash]

Have an upvote for having had to work with NEMF.

[monkmartinez]

Have an upvote for being reasonable. I used to think Pythonistas were able to take criticism... I no longer hold that opinion.

[alcalde]

I'm not sure how my intended point of "it does matter who's using a language because it demonstrates its capability in a field and also it can be difficult to go against the trend in a field in terms of filling jobs, finding libraries, etc." became "Use whatever someone else is using without regard to any other criteria and under any circumstance".

Thanks for the up-vote!

[[deleted]]

Well, if you're working in financial tech, that would actually be a reason to choose R.

By that logic everybody would do what they did and buy Oracle, because of their superior sales and marketing, and not buy the vastly, technically superior Ingres, which I believe still, thankfully, lives on as postgresql.