Python's popularity statistics

[Aaron K. Johnson]

In message <MRLN246341DC62 at merlin.envox.local.hr>, "Hrvoje Nezic" wrote:
> In my opinion there is no correspondence between
> quality, elegance and ease of use of a language
> and its popularity. It could be said that in some
> (or most) cases this is even inverse relation.
> 
> I think that Python deserves its popularity, but it
> cannot be said for other most popular languages.
> 
> Also, there are languages that are not popular,
> but really don't deserve such status.
> 
> 
> 

I said the same thing elsewhere in this thread. I cited Perl for its, well,
plain terrible design (I wasn't specific, though---mainly, it's a good old
syntax problem). I wouldn't imply popularity=quality, ever. Look at pop music
compared to Chopin,Bach, Bartok and friends, for example. (Yes-I'm a classical
music snob). And I would say more often than not it indicates lack of quality
when something's popular. But we have to be careful.

Python is that rare instance of a language which deserves popularity (it's the
Beatles of programming languages).

For me though, programming language popularity does say something of its
usefulness and power, if not of its difficulty. Ubiquitousness is important in
the computer arena, and its hard to get real world things done in a language
without active developers spurring its growth and libraries, etc.

-Aaron.