Who uses Python?

[sjdevnull at yahoo.com]

walterbyrd wrote:
> On Jun 5, 3:01 am, Maria R <Maria.Reinham... at accalon.com> wrote:
> > I tend to agree with some earlier poster that if you use Python you
> > are, in a sense, a programmer :o)
> >
>
> Yes, in a sense. But, in another sense, that is sort of like saying
> that people who post on message boards are "writers."
>
> I should have been more clear, when I posted "programmers" I meant
> "professional programmers" i.e. people who develop software
> applications for a living.
>
> I am getting the idea that most python "programmers" use python more
> like a tool, rather than as their primary specialization. In other
> words, python is usually not the primary specialization. I think this
> is different than other languages, such as Java, or even PHP.

Good professional programmers don't have a single language.  That's
true even of Java programmers.  PHP is an odd case; there are good PHP
programmers, but there's also a large group of people who aren't
really trained as programmers at all (despite writing PHP for a
living) for whom it's the only language they kind-of know.  The same
thing exists in other languages, but in my experience it's a fair bit
more common in the PHP world.

> Few python users are specifically "python programmers" rather, they are
> data analysts, scientists, etc. who use python in the same way that

FWIW, the majority of my paid work day is spent developing Python code
(or doing ancillary work common to all software projects--gathering
requirements, design, testing, etc), and it's the 3rd job in a row
(going back to 1999) where I've done a significant amount of Python
coding for work.  The prior two also involved a fair amount of C,
Java, and Perl as well.

I wouldn't call myself specifically a "Python programmer", but I
wouldn't have called myself specifically a "C programmer" 10 years
ago--and when I'm hiring, it's much more important to me to find a
good programmer than to find a programmer who knows Python (or
whatever other system is in use).  Programming as a skill is largely
independent of any single language, but that's not a Python-centric
statement.