Python Popularity: Questions and Comments

[Ron Stephens]

> Phil Hunt wrote:
>
> Just as Python can compile to the JVM, I'm sure it will compile to
> Microsoft's .net platform.

Hmm, I'm not so sure about this. Mark Hammond has stated, I believe, that the
work done so far at ActiveState was preliminary and not complete; and now we hear
that ActiveState has ceased work on Python related projects??? It sounds like a
Python.Net is a daunting task; as woudl be a Perl.net or a Ruby.NET don't want
programming to be forcibly OO. In Ruby, can you write

>
> What can I do in Ruby that I cannot just as easily do in python? Until
> that\ question is answered, Ruby will stay behind python in popularity.

I know of absolutely nothing that you can do in Ruby but not in Python. I know
that both Ruby and Python will survive, no question. I also suspect that Python
will always be more popular than Ruby. My only concern was that Ruby, which I
perceive as very similar to Python in many ways, will divert *some* folks form
Python to Ruby; many more than will divert from, say, Python to Perl, or from
Python to Tcl.

>
>
> I expect Python to keep growing. As computers get faster, programming in
> C++ makes less and less sense. People will move over to more high level
> langauges, such as Java, C#, Perl and Python. Java and C# are roughly
> on the same level, faster than Perl/Python but slower to code in. Python
> offers the fastest coding time, as it is "executable pseudocode", so
> I expect more and more stuff to be done in it.
>
>

I totally agree with you on this.

I am feeling better about Python vs. Ruby, partly based on what I am hearing from
folks in this thread, and partly from what I hear on the Ruby newsgroup about
problems running under windows with threading  and slowness etc.

I have no gripe against Ruby folks either , none whatsoever. not only is it a fee
world, but people are trying Ruby out just like we tried Python out ;-))) Both
communities are friendly, to. I just am more hoping that Python grows in
popularity vs. Ruby.

Now, my perception is that most Ruby developers run under Linux or some other
Unix. I wonder what percentage of Python developers run Windows, and what
percentage run Linux? I have no idea, does anyone have a guess? If you put my
back to the wall to make a prediction, I'd guess that more than half of us on
this newsgroup use windows. Anyone?

Also, one more thing: Guido was interviewed recently in a magazine and he
conjectured that programming for handholds and PDA's might be a huge niche for
Python in the future. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? What are Python's
strengths and weaknesses vs other languages, including Ruby, in this arena? How
is Pippy doing ????

Ron Stephens
http://www.awaretek.com/plf.html