Why did Quora choose Python for its development?

[Octavian Rasnita]

From: "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" <darcy at druid.net>
> On Tue, 24 May 2011 09:00:14 +0300
> "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita at gmail.com> wrote:
>> So, again, in Perl is just:
>> 
>> %d = @l;
>> 
>> Please tell me if Python has a syntax which is more clear than this for 
>> doing this thing.
> 
> How is that clear?  "Shorter" != "clearer."  A Python programmer
> looking at that sees line noise.  A Perl programmer looking at "d = dict
> ([a])" (or even "d = dict(a,)") sees something that has something to do
> with creating a dictionary.  At least he would know in which section of
> the manual to look for more information.


The Perl programmers usually don't need to look in the dictionary when they are creating programs.
Perl is harder to learn, but it is easier to use.

> Are Perl programmers aware of some imminent worldwide shortage of
> electrons that Python programmers are not?  Why is there this obsession
> with shortness?


A shorter code can be typed faster, obviously, and there are fewer possibility of appearing errors, but the shortage is not the most important thing.

The most important thing is that the chars @, $, or % are the same in all languages, while the English words used by the languages that use many such words are harder to remember especially for the non-native English speakers. Python is not a very bad language from this perspective like Java is though. :-)

In Perl the programmers can also use English words for some things, like $OUTPUT_AUTOFLUSH, but personally I never liked those things. Using $| instead is much shorter and clear, because I don't need to remember the English words like autoflush, or maybe it was just flush, or it was autoflush_output, or output_flush... something like $| can't be forgotten.

Yes, I know that the guys from Google would never like that since these chars are not "Googleable" :-)

Octavian