How python development is speedy!

[Gordon McMillan]

Sunil Hadap <Sunil.Hadap at cui.unige.ch> wrote:

>I use Python,I don't know Java. I am just curious, people keep
>reporting that Python is very fast in development as compared to 
Java
>and C++. Is this because of language feature or because of reduced
>compile-run-debug cycle, or something else!
>
>When I look at my Python code, I see little difference in terms of
>development efficiency as compared to C++ when used with STL 
and other
>good libraries. Does the higher types such as lists and tuples make
>Python so powerful, after all C++ had all that.

Those are factors. But the major one (at least for me) is syntactic 
simplicity.

I sometimes use Python to prototype something I know will end up 
in Java or C++. In those cases, I tend to write my Python so it will 
be translatable, (ie, I don't make use of use of Python features that I 
won't have in Java / C++). In this case, the productivity gain decays 
pretty quickly and I quit prototyping as soon as I know it's 
reasonable.

An app that will stay in Python gets designed quite differently 
(particularly in terms of class hierarchies - I think "components" in 
Python).