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> You can use a hammer and a screwdriver for putting screws into drywall, but one tool is objectively better, under most conditions, regardless of your personal

> You can use a hammer and a screwdriver for putting screws into drywall, but one tool is objectively better, under most conditions, regardless of your personal opinion. This is a poor analogy. Programming languages are used for writing programs. You suggest that Python is objectively superior in one context "scripting" than other programming languages. There are languages that are not cross-platform, that would fit that, there are languages like PL/SQL that are limited to databases, those are not practical for many program development efforts. In this context, we're really talking about two different types of hammers, perhaps one has a claw and the other does not, but they are both fairly portable and can target nearly all the same platforms. But if Python is objectively better than these other general purpose languages, does that imply that there are areas where Python is not superior to these languages? Would it suggest that folks who've been successful even when choosing Python in those cases objectively made the wrong choice?

eloff 6y ago
> In this context, we're really talking about two different types of hammers, perhaps one has a claw and the other does not, but they are both fairly portable and can target nearly all the same platforms. It's an analogy, but one tool is going to be faster and easier to use. So let's say a screwdriver vs an electric screwdriver. > But if Python is objectively better than these other general purpose languages, does that imply that there are areas where Python is not superior to these languages? Yes. There are a lot of areas where Python is inferior. In fact I'm using Rust right now for a project despite having over 15 years experience with Python. Programming languages are tools and they're better or worse suited to different tasks. There is no one language to rule them all - yet anyway. > Would it suggest that folks who've been successful even when choosing Python in those cases objectively made the wrong choice? Yes. That you were successful does not fully validate your decision about choice of programming language. It just means it wasn't that bad. It does not mean it was the optimal choice.
- eloff 6y ago
  I'm surprised people disagree with anything I said in this comment. It all seems like common sense, bordering on the obvious.
- wtetzner 6y ago
  > over 15 years experience with Python. I wonder how much this has to do with you finding Python to be better suited to quick scripting tasks. Even for small scripts, I find Python to be fairly clunky to use, and just having simple type checking would speed things up for me considerably.
  - strbean 6y ago
    I think one of the biggest problems with Python is this notion of "good for small scripts / throwaway stuff". It is far too often that a program is given this treatment, and then needs to grow or be reused and maintained later. Trying to replicate bioinformatics work is a huge PITA because of this type of approach.
pjmlp 6y ago
Actually, check Oracle Forms and APEX.

eloff 6y ago

> In this context, we're really talking about two different types of hammers, perhaps one has a claw and the other does not, but they are both fairly portable and can target nearly all the same platforms. It's an analogy, but one tool is going to be faster and easier to use. So let's say a screwdriver vs an electric screwdriver. > But if Python is objectively better than these other general purpose languages, does that imply that there are areas where Python is not superior to these languages? Yes. There are a lot of areas where Python is inferior. In fact I'm using Rust right now for a project despite having over 15 years experience with Python. Programming languages are tools and they're better or worse suited to different tasks. There is no one language to rule them all - yet anyway. > Would it suggest that folks who've been successful even when choosing Python in those cases objectively made the wrong choice? Yes. That you were successful does not fully validate your decision about choice of programming language. It just means it wasn't that bad. It does not mean it was the optimal choice.

eloff 6y ago
I'm surprised people disagree with anything I said in this comment. It all seems like common sense, bordering on the obvious.
wtetzner 6y ago
> over 15 years experience with Python. I wonder how much this has to do with you finding Python to be better suited to quick scripting tasks. Even for small scripts, I find Python to be fairly clunky to use, and just having simple type checking would speed things up for me considerably.
- strbean 6y ago
  I think one of the biggest problems with Python is this notion of "good for small scripts / throwaway stuff". It is far too often that a program is given this treatment, and then needs to grow or be reused and maintained later. Trying to replicate bioinformatics work is a huge PITA because of this type of approach.

pjmlp 6y ago

Actually, check Oracle Forms and APEX.