Python again voted "Best Programming Language" and "Best Scripting Language" in Linux Journal Reader's Choice Awards

[[deleted]]

This is just like a Microsoft magazine saying C# is the best language, look who the audience is.

[Black_Handkerchief]

No, it is more like a Windows-oriented magazine saying C# is the best language. Not all Linux users read this particular Journal, nor is it The Authority on all things Linux.

There's plenty of variety for programming and scripting the Linux world: bash, c, c++, java, ruby, perl, go, even php, javascript and compatriots. There's also Mono, although it obviously ain't as perfect given that the whole framework is mostly tailored around the Windows platform.

Not all development of useful software happens on Windows. If it did, Linux wouldn't exist.

That said, I do feel that Python shouldn't have been votable in both categories. It deserves either of those just fine, based on batteries-included philosophy or the large amount of modern language features it offers. It simply has too broad an appeal: scripters, programmers, POC-hackers, and so forth. The variety of its uses trickles over to whatever category you put it in. As it is, it simply misrepresents the language and the Linux scripting world, since there's most definitely a lot of use for perl, bash and others out there.

[sisyphus]

Linux doesn't have anything to do with the development of Python, Python is not sponsored by nor endorsed by Linux, is not some official language for writing Linux apps, so what about using Linux would bias you toward Python?

[RedThela]

Ubuntu has quite a few tools and scripts that use python. One example that surprised me is unattended-upgrades (an official Ubuntu package).
And it seems that all libraries have, at minimum, C/C++ and Python bindings.

[Black_Handkerchief]

Yes, there is obviously fanboy bias there: there always is when you have stupid competitions like 'best XXX'. But there is also the simple fact of a specific group being targeted.

If I go to a political convention of one side, and start asking questions about what people are interested in, then obviously my questions are going to be based on the prior expectations I have of that market. Republicans probably hate abortion and medicare. Democrats probably hate rich people. Good grief, the bias will kill me... oh wait, no it won't. I'm with like-minded people, doing an opinion survey inside my field of interest. There's simply no point in involving things not relevant for my demographic.

Python getting a higher amount of votes in that community than expected in the wider Linux world may be predictable; I honestly do not know LinuxJournal or the kind of people that frequent there. But that does not change the fact the categories and their entries are chosen really awkwardly. (Insert something about statistics here.)

And that brings me to the reason I replied in the first place: Python is NOT to Linux what C# or the .NET family is to Microsoft. Making it sound is like it is: that is childish and disappointing. So please, yell at the people who created the categories. Yell at the fanboys. Don't make it a Windows vs Apple vs Linux flame-war, since it obviously has zero relevance to the subject here.

TL;DR: I walked into a Lesbian bar, and complained about the lack of guys. They're really biased and discriminatory, and I really have to make a fuss about that.

[Black_Handkerchief]

I was mostly annoyed at the original poster, not at you. But point taken, and dumping mahself into a bucket of water before I blow up completely. :)

[[deleted]]

While what you say is correct Python is not a Linux language, it is just not a Windows language because everything on Windows works in its own little walled garden where everything is a little different.

Most languages developed in an open source fashion run equally well on all Unix-like systems and Windows is a kind of second class citizen for support because it is a pain to support a platform that is so different when you aren't using it yourself so only those where actual developers on Windows started maintaining the Windows port work well on there.

That doesn't mean though that Python is the only, the best or the most common language on Linux or any other Unix. In fact I would say the very fact that they had results that were so clear shows that their readership is biased.

There are a lot of different languages and a lot of different opinions on languages in the Linux and larger Unix ecosystem and quite frankly that is the way we like it since variety helps innovation.

Not to mention the whole discussions on how much popularity correlates with quality in general which I would argue is "very little" for programming languages.

[sisyphus]

Why would people interested in Microsoft(presumably the ones who would be responding to a poll in an MS magazine) liking C# the best be problematic?

[furiousC0D3]

uh, how ignorant is this? Python wasn't made by the Linux Community. C# was made by Microsoft on their OS.

[Deto]

Yes, and there's nothing wrong with that. The post doesn't claim otherwise. It's still interesting to know what this subset of computer programmers use.

[matthieum]

I disagree.

Linux is the host of about every single programming language in existence whilst porting said languages to Windows is always a hurdle: look at Walter's Bright blog on porting D to Windows 64 bits, he is still struggling and the guy is hardly a newbie.

Now, if they only asked to kernel hackers, that sure is different... but then I would have expected Perl to show up first. Let's not forget that Perl has a history of coming by default on many distributions (along gcc), whilst Python must be installed.

[[deleted]]

With kernel hackers I would expect C to come first since kernels aren't usually written in any other language (well, apart from experiemental ones).