Article of interest: Python pros/cons for the enterprise

[Nicola Musatti]

On Feb 24, 9:14 pm, Larry Bugbee <ebug... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 21, 10:22 am, Nicola Musatti <nicola.musa... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Feb 21, 6:31 pm, Paul Boddie <p... at boddie.org.uk> wrote:
>
> > > The main reason why C++ has declined in usage is because almost
> > > everything of practical value is optional.
>
> No, disagree.
>
> > The main reason why C++ has declined in usage is because it never got
> > the kind of corporate marketing enjoyed by Java and C#.
>
> I'm inclined to disagree for two reasons.  C++ is a very complex
> language.  Java (and the later C#) less so.  Couple that with reduced
> debugging time due to garbage collection and fewer pointer problems, a
> lot of us decided a factor of 2x in personal productivity was worth
> it.  Runtime was initially an impediment, and still is for desktop
> applications, but the trade was worth it.

While this was probably true towards the end of the nineties, given
the standard library and Boost I find it hard to believe that a
similar increase can be accounted for just in terms of language
differences.

> Corporate marketing, and corporate attention in general, saw to it
> that Java was well equipped with libraries and frameworks addressing
> enterprise application needs.  ...but the *big* reason Java won over C+
> + is because your application became stable sooner.  ...with arguably
> fewer problems later.

The number of libraries you get "out of the box" appear to me as more
likely explanations for the productivity increase.

> And the migration to Python is due in large part because of an
> additional factor of 3-4x in personal productivity (over Java).
> Improvements in runtime performance wouldn't hurt, but for many
> applications that's not an issue.  (If optional data typing were
> offered, Python's penetration in the enterprise space would be even
> higher, and I suspect there would be performance gains as well.)

This I found less hard to believe. Python is more expressive than Java
and usually requires less code for the same task. Moreover tha
availability of libraries is comparable.

Cheers,
Nicola Musatti