Python is just as good as C++ for real apps
Donovan Rebbechi
elflord at panix.com
Tue Jan 22 22:25:25 EST 2002
In article <nEl38.206$DT5.96392 at news.uswest.net>, Kevin Altis wrote:
> Yes, it does need to be said. Are there more C++ programmers than Python
> programmers? Are there more Java programmers than Python programmers? Are
> there more Perl programmes than Python programmers? Are there more Visual
> Basic programmers than Python programmers? The answer to all of these
> questions is yes. Do you want to see more Python books?
Honestly, I couldn't care less. There are a number of python books, and the
reference documentation is very good. I dived straight into the Python API
to work with the nuts and bolts of the system while giving myself a crash
course, and the online API documentation made that a very pleasurable
experience.
> Do you want to see
> Python covered as extensively in the press as Java or C# (the deluge is
> coming)?
It's be nice, but again, to be honest, I don't care that much. I don't
like the idea of it losing out to an inferior, or less portable technology,
but aside from that concern, not really.
> Do you want to see more Python programming jobs available? Do you
Not really.
> want to see increased benefits from your Python knowledge? Then for every
Hahahahaha ... who cares ? "Python knowledge", "C++ knowledge", or any other
kind of language specific knowledge is almost worthless. As is a programmer
whose capacity for abstraction is so limited that they allow themselves to
degenerate into a (foo) programmer, instead of a programmer. If you've
mastered the paradigms, picking up a new language is easy. I don't learn
languages for immediate commercial benefit. I'm studying ML right now, and I
haven't seen any ML jobs in the paper -- my motive is to learn another way of
looking at programming problems.
> Python's popularity is hampered by the perception that it is not a good
> language for many tasks, including building standalone GUI applications.
Well that's just dumb. Their loss, I suppose. It'd help if Python would
standardise on something besides Tk. (WxWindows, perhaps. My preference is
for Qt, but it's not free on non-UNIX platforms)
> Whenever somebody proposes that an application be built using C/C++, C#,
> Java, Visual Basic, etc. and Python isn't even on the list of candidates
> that means Python does not have the mindshare it should. The perception that
> Python is "just a scripting language" and that somehow scripting is inferior
> to using a "real language" is just plain wrong.
Python is not statically typed. This is either a strength or a liability,
depending on the situation.
--
Donovan
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