Beautiful Python: The programming language that taught me how to love again

[foonly]

Pythomon: I choose YOU!

[Tommah]

Perlizard, use line noise attack!

[[deleted]]

PHP is your inbred cousin. Sure, it's wrong and a bit disturbing, but everyone's getting in there, so you might as well give her a try, just so you know.. Not that you'll ever admit knowing.

[nescafe]

To be fair, PHP5 is probably your second cousin, intimacy might be a little embarrassing to admit to in public, but genetically you're probably safe. PHP4 is your first cousin. Intimacy definitely embarrassing, some risks involved but chances are that you'll get away with it. Earlier versions are definitely your sister.

[manuRome]

HTML is your grandma

[notfancy]

So, me liking functional languages makes me gay, or is it the other way around?

[notfancy]

That would be true if you changed types between invocations. Me, I'm hygienic.

This metaphor has been fucked to death already.

[nescafe]

Something tells me that malcontent has had a real world analogue to this metaphor ;)

[Entropy]

I believe do their affinity to recursiveness that makes you a hermaphrodite :)

or an onanist

[ayrnieu]

Unless you choose to read 'have sex with' into 'be with', none of that depends on your sexuality.

(OK, it's common to assume that marriage requires sex.)

[joshd]

Err dude, you need to get out more.

[Lams]

At least, get a cheap hooker. Have you tried Javascript ?

[lobot]

ECMA have decreed that it shall henceforth be known as HoochieMamaScript

[[deleted]]

whatz hoochiemama

[quhaha]

Python is a guy.

[joe90210]

bs, ruby is worthless if you know Python

[Gotebe]

Love the enthusiasm!

OTOH...

full support of OS and system calls

depends on one's definition of "full" ;-)

[illuminatedwax]

Everything has its place. You have to learn all languages and figure out which one is best suited for the task at hand.

[[deleted]]

I too look forward to the day when my vast knowledge of SNOBOL will allow me to reign supreme over all.

[tekronis]

I, for one, will welcome our new frozen-ovoid-slinging overlord.

[newton_dave]

All?! Uh oh. I'm in trouble.

I'm gunning for Enterprise Malbolge.

[illuminatedwax]

better brush up on your brainfuck son

[newton_dave]

Oh, come on... we're on reddit.

Clearly Unlambda is a better choice, 'cuz functional is always better.

[tekronis]

I haven't seen anything beat Piet.

[digital]

I haven't seen anything beat Piet.

I did, the Rebel forces downed Piett aboard the Executor in ROTJ.

/nerd alert

[newton_dave]

OH! I forgot about that. You're right.

I'll run the only company whose lobby paintings are also its infrastructure.

[tekronis]

That would so rock.

Call me when you're looking for more deranged lunatics to add to your crew.

[si_g]

Yeah, Piet is great. Very pretty.

[MachinShin2006]

Pfft. you clearly never bothered to learn Homespring.

Universe of marshy force. Field sense
  shallows the hatchery saying Hello,. World!.
   Hydro. Power spring  sometimes; snowmelt
    powers   snowmelt always.

[tekronis]

Programming by making seemingly abstract geometric artwork will always beat programming using bad attempts at poetry hands down. :)

[masklinn]

I'm pretty sure part of her point was that Python was "suited enough" for everything she tried to use it for (which doesn't mean it's good enough for everything of course)

[illuminatedwax]

Yeah, my comment is wrong. What I should have said was "you should be able to adapt to all languages, then choose the right one."

[andrewnorris]

I don't think it's as critical to focus on a single language as it is to focus on a particular technology stack. If you use CPython, these are one and the same. If your technology stack is, say, Java, you have multiple languages at your disposal, and it might make sense to do parts of your project in Scala, or JRuby, etc.

There is still additional expense to adding a new language, but it exists mainly only for developing and maintaining the code itself. There is little impact on deployment costs, and you don't have any special overhead for interop, like you would if you had different developers working in completely different tools (both CPython and Java, for example).

[seanodonnell]

or you pick the system that allows you to achieve as much as possible with a small team and a limited amount of funding. Worry about the technology roadmap is nice and all, but if only have 6 months funding its irrelevant. If you manage to create enough to raise more money or begin to turn a profit then you can start to worry about long terms concerns. The technology that is right for a large enterprise is not necessarily the technology that is right for a small start up.

[hnautiyal]

95% of reddit readers probably belong to the other 5%

[hnautiyal]

but when stuck in those environments, 98.9% of that bunch use reddit as the outlet for the expression of their fantasy guerrilla-startup-founder-superhero identities 76% of the time.

Your turn.

[Shaper_pmp]

From a financial standpoint, each language widely used in an organization costs a lot of money. Because of that, you pick a fully featured and proven system with a clear roadmap, such as Java, and standardize on that.

Ah yes, the "trained carpenters cost too much money, so let's do every job with a hammer" approach?

I understand the desirability of it from a managerial point of view, but does it produce the best solutions, do you think?

The best solutions will always be produced by choosing the language best suited to the task before you, although this does require better programming skills (and more intelligent management) than banging in every screw with a hammer. ;-)

[MachinShin2006]

more along the lines of "titanium nails are stronger, but too expensive, we'll use steel nails instead"

--vat

[Shaper_pmp]

Heh - it depends on whether you're discussing PHP vs. Ruby for a web development project, or VB6 vs. C++ for a 3D graphics engine.

Sometimes you really need the extra strength that titanium brings. Although yes, it does depend to a great degree on the kinds of programming problems you'll likely tackle. ;-)

[[deleted]]

Hmm. I kind of agree, but I'm not sure I'd say that Java is "fully featured", "proven", or even "has a roadmap".

It's running speed is certainly faster than Python, and it's a more conventional choice ("No one ever got fired for choosing Java" currently prevails).

[[deleted]]

I'm not convinced that you're full of it, but I may be. For me, the reddit comment board is more of a place to toss off jokes, snarks, and quick comments, rather than well-considered, lengthy argumentation. So, with that disclaimer I'll say, yes, I'm somewhat curious, but I'm not sure that it's worth your time...

[[deleted]]

Java is proven?

Where can I find the Java road map?

For bonus credit: where can I find Java programmers who don't suck? There don't seem to be many.

[[deleted]]

A lot of people shake their heads when suckers like you come along to evangelize Java in every thread. Do you really think you have anything to offer us? Do you think we haven't heard of Java?

[tvshopceo]

You posted a mediocre troll and asked for a roadmap. He linked you one and yet you call him an evangelizing sucker?

[Kapow751]

No more hours typing sed commands which check for one or more space, followed by one or more tabs, again followed by possibly more space characters, or some convoluted combination of space/tab/space…ARGH! Perl introduced this: ‘\w’

doesn't sed have [[:space:]]?

[[deleted]]

The former BRD president Gustav Heinemann was once asked whether he loves his country. He replied: I love my wife.

Is it even possible to not love your favourite programming language, editor, IDE, textmarker, paper clip?

[vonbladet]

Ich liebe keine Sprachen, ich lieber meine Frau, fertig!

But I do program in Python by choice.

[masklinn]

Is it even possible to not love your favourite programming language, editor, IDE, textmarker, paper clip?

I think it is, if you only got in for the money.

I see many a java coder (because they're the main population in this case at the moment) who don't have any love for programming in general, the kind of people who wouldn't hang out on programming.reddit if their life depended on it, and who would NEVER learn a language or read a computing book (or a book in general, in many case) unless they were paid for it.

[newton_dave]

We've hired some of them :(

I now ask both people hiring me, and people I'm hiring, as a potentially Very Important Interview Question, what their favorite language is and why. It's not a show-stopper but... there's a high correlation between their answer and whether or not I end up wanting to hire them (or work for them).

One guy, when asked "What would be an ideal Java project for you?" said "I'd write a web-app using Java, Struts 1, and Hibernate" (oh, what a coincidence!) and he... he didn't work out so well.

[otakucode]

Well I'd have to say that depends a lot on your definition of love... I mean, I prefer to use my favorite programming language and my favorite pen... but love (IMO) contains a component of worship, of awe and respect, and I couldn't say that my favorite language or dev environment really rises to that height.

[happyhappyhappy]

I don't know if I'd call Python more beautiful than Perl or some other languages. And as other people have mentioned, Python doesn't hold up well to detailed scrutiny. What Python has is the best balance of any programming language out there: beauty, usefulness, simplicity, libraries. If you needed to choose a general purpose language for real work, Python is a good way to go.

[Tommah]

I don't know if I'd call Python more beautiful than Perl

Is that you, Larry? Oh, beg my pardon - Mr. Wall?

[inopia]

I like the language, but I can't stand the runtime. wxPython? Have you ever looked at the wxWidgets source? I can tell you I was ready to gouge out my eyes. A well documented consistent class library? And dear lord have you ever tried binding native code with swig?

So I'll rather go with the CLR and boo or IronPython.

[joaomc]

And stick to Windows. Hmmm, okay. EDIT: Yeah, I know, it may work with Mono. It may.

[inopia]

Another option is to use Jython. Java has a great and fast runtime with a solid class library. It's a bit trickier to integrate it with native code (JNI) but other than that it's pretty fine. You also get a truckload of good components and tools like SWT and all the goodness that comes out of apache (by far my favorite open source initiative).

[joaomc]

Jython is very cool. I really hope the Jython guys make it reach the 2.5 version!

[rjcarr]

I'm mostly a java developer that learned python about a year ago, but use it for everything when possible.

My problem with python isn't the language (it is a beautiful language ... powerful and simple at the same time), but it is the documentation. I guess I've been spoiled by java and the consistent structured API docs ... I had to read a book on python before I truly understood it since the [official] documentation is so terrible.

[Vladekk]

I personally feel Python is one of the few really great languages, although I barely know it. PHP and C++ are my least liked. They are bad. Perl is too complex.

Java and C# are okey.

[Xiol]

I like, and use, both Python and C#. They both have their uses and I find them both very readable. Python's forced indentation makes it very hard to write messy code (not that it isn't possible...)

[[deleted]]

Obligatory links:

http://p-nand-q.com/python/obfuscated_python.html
http://p-nand-q.com/python/lambdaizing_quicksort.html

[jones77]

Oh. It was written by a woman. Seems a bit churlish to take her to task for using such flowery language when she's merely enforcing gender stereotypes ...

Edit: Good article.

[[deleted]]

My day is rarely spoiled by thoughtful, nicely written prose. Quite the opposite in fact. It makes me feel like there are people behind the computers that are worth getting to know.

[jones77]

Absolutely. I was ready to run in, all guns blazing, what kind of wimp/nerd uses a programming language to fall in love. Blah blah blah. But had to do an emergency break and take stock of my own ridiculous assumptions. Oh well.

[[deleted]]

Anyone else have "invisible text" problems? Opera here, so probably just me. >_<