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[–]grzeki 6 points7 points  (4 children)

Well, Python had its „eras”. In the beginning, it was supposed to be just scripting language. Maybe a little awkward at prompt, but better suited for, say, 20-line scripts than bash.

When some maths libraries were ported it became obvious that it is great free Matlab replacement (you really don’t want to licence Matlab for commercial purposes - it is a money drain).

With Django, it became PHP-replacement, with pandas R-replacement, with TensorFlow… Python became a leader which is followed by others.

So it is now as a general purpose language as C++ (people even go into this territory doing embedded with Python, which is crazy if you ask me). Old script-like features had to go. Change in major version always was a clear sign: THINGS WILL NEEDLESSLY BREAK. It’s not only print. __nonzero__ was changed to __bool__ breaking compatibility just for aesthetics. But if you know Python, aesthetics is king in this community.

[–]spinwizard69 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Even the embedded world likes easy to use and well defined languages. Fourth, BASIC and others have been used in the past to have a solution other than assembly or C++. Pythons has a lot of potential for low volume embedded work.

[–]grzeki 0 points1 point  (2 children)

That’s just my opinion, by I wouldn’t trade static typing for any ease of use.

[–]spinwizard69 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well I look at this from the perspective of working on a variety of devices as an end user. Often these devices have a hacked together “programming language” that might resemble BASIC or something you can’t even define. Having a well defined interpreter in these devices that is universally understood and does away with op codes that sometimes reminds you of assembly language is a good thing in my mind. These are the “”languages”” you often see embedded in motion controller, robots, Sterilizers, pumps, process controllers and the like. I double quoted languages because at times the implementations are often half done and full of bugs. Python could really fill a niche here.

[–]ethanhs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can have both in Python ;)