age of new pythonistas [was: The Editor Poll results are in!]

[Jeff Polaski]

I'm 33

As a web programmer I've done a lot of scripting, so I really tend to
favor scripting languages.

I've been programming in Python for about four years. IIRC I
discovered it through a slashdot post. At the time I was using Perl to
maintain web sites for Rockwell's Space Systems Division (soon after
bought by Boeing). The external site had about 25,000 documents, and
the intranet had about 200,000 documents. There was no way I could
have maintained that site without using a scripting language. I tried
Perl first, and Perl ran a lot faster, but I found Python was a lot
easier to maintain in the long run. Most importantly, I just enjoyed
programming in Python more than Perl. There were far fewer
"surprises". Everything seemed to just work like I thought it should.
Python certainly wasn't as efficient as Perl, though. Some of the
Python scripts might take an hour longer to run, but it wasn't a big
deal as I could just run them from a separate machine while I did
other things.

While Python isn't my main programming language, I write Python about
an hour a day. I'll use it for many different things: data munging,
prototyping, etc... I'm constantly writing scripts to make "process
improvements". Right now I have a script that verifies transactions
and makes sure files get exported correctly. It's a fairly small
script, but it provides important assurance that everything went O.K.
with our web applications. Also, I use Python a lot to automate
repetitive coding in ColdFusion or Java. A lot of what I do sits on
top of a database. It's easy to write a script that generates most of
the code. It's faster than I can do by hand, and more consistent.

Right now most of my programming is done in ColdFusion and Java. I've
used also used Pascal, Object Pascal (Delphi), C, C++, SQL, ASP, VB,
JavaScript, and XML. By far my favorite language is Python.

Please don't construe this the wrong way. I don't want this to come
off as language bigotry. I have programs written in Perl and C++ that
I'm working on now, just for myself, and, all in all, I enjoy them.
I'm also teaching myself Scheme (through The Little Schemer*). But
when I just want to program for fun, I reach for Python first.

*A previous posts mentioned The Pragmatic Programmer: "Learn at least
one new language every year." I agree. Scheme is my choice, this year.
Then, maybe, Lisp.

Jeff Polaski