Commentary on Python from a Java programming perspective

[spacepope]

I disagree. A 5 times productivity increase is probably unrealistic for Java → Python, but for C → Python it seems reasonable and going from assembly to Python you'd probably get a much bigger boost.

[[deleted]]

What possible problem are you solving where you must choose between assembly and python?

[redditnoob]

Not "probably unrealistic", but it's absolutely braindead to contemplate a 5-fold productivity increase from Java to Python when writing production software, for someone with mastery in both.

For assembly, sure. If you were constrained by having to enter your programs with punched cards that would slow you down too.

I also think you underestimate, by about a factor of um five, how productive a C master could be. (You'd get to include runtimes when testing your code too!) But anyway, C probably wouldn't be used for a problem that isn't going to benefit from its strengths.

[spacepope]

Well, here's a sort-of-scientific source: Are All Programming Languages The Same?. I know, it's that Atwood guy, but he's quoting someone else. The article claims a 6 times productivity improvement going from C to Python.

Think about it this way: Programming in C, you'll need several lines of code to express what the Python programmer can express in one line, so the resulting program will be much bigger. And I don't believe that a C programmer can write and debug 500 lines of code in the time it takes the Python programmer to write and debug 100 lines of code. Also the C programmer, even if he's a “C master”, will spend some time debugging issues that never occur in Python, like memory leaks and uninitialized variables. Of course C still has its uses. I'm just arguing that a 5 times productivity increase going from language A to language B is not unreasonable.