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> The rise of Python at the expense of safer, typed, faster, more principled languages makes me very sad for the state of our industry There is no rise. Not a

> The rise of Python at the expense of safer, typed, faster, more principled languages makes me very sad for the state of our industry There is no rise. Not any more. At best, it's a plateau, and in my opinion, all dynamically typed languages except Javascript are on a straight decline curve, slowly being replaced by statically typed languages. I noticed that a lot of people who enjoy Go come from Ruby or Python. Go's type system is clearly antiquated and weak, but it's a straight upgrade from a dynamically typed language, which is why it's finding an audience with the Python/Ruby crowd.

willtim 10y ago
I hope you are right. It's spreading all over the industry I work in and the schools want to teach it to my kids.
zephyrfalcon 10y ago
"""There is no rise. Not any more. At best, it's a plateau, and in my opinion, all dynamically typed languages except Javascript are on a straight decline curve, slowly being replaced by statically typed languages.""" This sounds like wishful thinking. (Your wish, apparently... certainly not mine. :-) I have seen no evidence that Python is on the way out. If I look at the languages asked for in HN's "Who's Hiring" thread, Python is #1. Even so, there are dynamically typed functional languages, like Clojure and Elixir, that are definitely on the way up.
- hota_mazi 10y ago
  Sure, it's just my opinion. Your post history seems to suggest you are heavily involved in Python. I'm not. I don't write Python, I don't write Go, I have no dog in this race. I'm just observing trends, like I've been doing for the 30+ years I've been in this industry. And these past few years, I've observed enough hints that people are moving from Python and Ruby in droves. And also that no large projects would be started in either of these languages today. Python/Ruby are going to stay around forever, no doubt, but much more as a glue/infrastructure language to write scripts here and there (and TensorFlow might help Python stay relevant for a bit longer too).

willtim 10y ago

I hope you are right. It's spreading all over the industry I work in and the schools want to teach it to my kids.

zephyrfalcon 10y ago

"""There is no rise. Not any more. At best, it's a plateau, and in my opinion, all dynamically typed languages except Javascript are on a straight decline curve, slowly being replaced by statically typed languages.""" This sounds like wishful thinking. (Your wish, apparently... certainly not mine. :-) I have seen no evidence that Python is on the way out. If I look at the languages asked for in HN's "Who's Hiring" thread, Python is #1. Even so, there are dynamically typed functional languages, like Clojure and Elixir, that are definitely on the way up.

hota_mazi 10y ago
Sure, it's just my opinion. Your post history seems to suggest you are heavily involved in Python. I'm not. I don't write Python, I don't write Go, I have no dog in this race. I'm just observing trends, like I've been doing for the 30+ years I've been in this industry. And these past few years, I've observed enough hints that people are moving from Python and Ruby in droves. And also that no large projects would be started in either of these languages today. Python/Ruby are going to stay around forever, no doubt, but much more as a glue/infrastructure language to write scripts here and there (and TensorFlow might help Python stay relevant for a bit longer too).