Article on the future of Python

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, 25 Sep 2012 18:25:30 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:

> On 2012-09-25, Martin P. Hellwig <martin.hellwig at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tuesday, 25 September 2012 09:14:27 UTC+1, Mark Lawrence  wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> I though this might be of interest.
>>> http://www.ironfroggy.com/software/i-am-worried-about-the-future-of-
python
> 
>> I glanced over the article but it seems to me another 'I am afraid this
>> is not the silver bullet I wanted it to be' article
> 
> Strange.  I didn't get that _at_all_ from the article.
> 
> To me it was expressing concern about what happens when the range of
> "niches" where Python is a good solution falls below a certain critical
> mass -- will the "Python Community" start to stagnate because it isn't
> attacting new developers in the quantity or diversity that it used to...

Sounds like the same thing to me. Since Python fails to capture all the 
development niches, it is not a silver bullet for programming, and 
therefore it won't attract the fresh new blood it needs, because everyone 
is programming for <insert list of niches here>.

I guarantee you that you could pick *any* language in existence, and find 
three areas that are dominated by other languages, which *somebody* could 
have convinced themselves is essential to the health of the community.

C? Once upon a time the C community was growing at a rapid rate because 
of the Unix admins that picked it up from day-to-day scripting tasks 
using c-shell. C became popular on the back of Unix, Unix has stagnated 
and people have moved on from csh to bash and other shells. The default 
shell on Linux is bash! C is in danger of no longer attracting new 
developers, and if you think the Python 2 -> 3 transition was disruptive, 
you should see what's happened in C: you have C, C++, Objective-C, C#, 
even C-- and D.

SQL? All the exciting, innovative work in databases is happening in the 
non-relational field of NoSQL languages. Without the ability to handle 
Google's database needs, and with a name like NoSQL attracting all the 
best and brightest database developers away from SQL, it's time to sell 
your shares in Oracle.

Java? More and more development is moving to HTML5 and Javascript. With 
the public's abandonment of the Java plugin for browsers, and schools 
moving towards Python and PHP as a first language, Java's days are 
numbered.

Cobol? Sure, eighty percent of the code in active use is written in 
Cobol. Sure, there are 200 times more Cobol transactions per day than 
Google searches -- about three quarters of *all* computer transactions 
are done using Cobol. But Cobol only gets used for such boring stuff as 
keeping your money safe in the bank. All the real innovation is in, well, 
everything except Cobol. The imminent demise of Cobol is predicted for 
1975^W 1980^W 1985^W 1990^W 1995^W 2005^W 2010^W 2015.



-- 
Steven