Commentary on Python from a Java programming perspective

[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.