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This makes me wonder what did cause Python's / Ruby's rise in popularity if there weren't any huge changes to the languages themselves in that time. I guess may

by yissp 5y ago

This makes me wonder what did cause Python's / Ruby's rise in popularity if there weren't any huge changes to the languages themselves in that time. I guess maybe the emergence of Rails in Ruby's case? And for Python, I don't know, Django? Numpy?

giancarlostoro 5y ago
I think major libraries like Django or Rails are what push a language forward. Look at Go as a big example of this, it had a web server that was production ready built-in. People went with it and are still going with it. It's one of the things that attracts me to Racket above all other Lisp (or lisp like languages) because I can: make a server, make a gui, do front-end web styling all in Racket all out of the box. I also kind of like Clojure cause of Lein (a package manager that will install Clojure for you as long as you have the JVM setup, making your life stupidly easier). I think the stronger the standard library, the more likely your language will be adopted. If anyone out there is building a language and has strong funding, invest in database drivers and a strong web framework that compliments your language and showcases its capabilities. I would love for D's Vibe.d to be more polished, seems they got as far as they wanted to and stopped, I havent seen much new in half a decade compared to other web frameworks.
dorfsmay 5y ago
For Python: - extremely simple, easy to learn. - progressive learning (you can start with very little knowledge and add later) - strongly encouraging a single way to do things, promoting readability - minimal scalfolding - write once, run everywhere (in theory) - many included libraries + a large ecosystem I used to write in Perl and had to constantly go back to the book to get the syntax right, and one day tried Python, and cut my time to write stuff in half, was able to reread and understand my code, and so were others.
- goatlover 5y ago
  > strongly encouraging a single way to do things, promoting readability This doesn't seem to be so true nowadays. Python gives you lots of ways to do many things.
e3bc54b2 5y ago
My earliest exposure for Python was from Linux distros. Originally Perl was used for stringing together a Linux distribution, but then Python took over the role, slowly. Batteries included stdlib helped a lot there, and also because there wasn't much else like it back then (remember, Python is older than Java). And then since it was already there, everybody suggested it and used it as introduction to programming. Incidentally (or not) it was also intended for and suitable for first time programmers with ridiculously simple syntax and so it became the lingua franca of programming lessons everywhere. I suspect that (along with excellent C/C++ interop) had a chance in getting it picked up as front end for ML frameworks, and then here we are.
taeric 5y ago
Python got a huge uptake as developers tried dodging system requirements. That is, it was not uncommon to have a requirement that you cannot install new languages. But you could pip install dependencies, as that did not necessarily change the full system. So, since Python was already installed, it had a toe in the door that the likes of Ruby did not. Granted... Dependency management in Python has revealed itself to be a minefield...
- hiptobecubic 5y ago
  This kind of answer really ignores almost all of why these languages have done well. They are easy to learn. Relatively speaking, especially at the time they were gaining popularity, they were far easier to learn gradually and still be productive than almost everything else available. Their communities adopted explicit "this language is for DOING shit understandably, not golfing, not squeezing cpu cycles, not researching type systems, not timtowtdi, etc." That helped tremendously. In pythons case, it was very easy to wrap up C and C++ code and lift it into a nice environment with a repl and everything else you need to experiment. This put it in an excellent position to grow along with the scientific community. Numpy was a huge asset here. The rise of rails, Django, heroku, MacBooks as the dominant coding environment etc all fostered an environment where coding went from being nerd shit to being fashionable. This ushered in the era of "people who code for reasons other than being huge fucking computer nerds," in which the benefits of Python and Ruby mentioned above became even more relevant.
  - taeric 5y ago
    I balk heavily at the idea that python is truly easier to learn. In large because it is actually quite hard for me to pick up some random python and really be able to follow it. Most of the claim of what the community in successful languages did, is so steeped in confirmation and survivor bias that it is hard to see it as more than just popular marketing. So. No. I am not ignoring these claims. But nor will I assume their truth. If you have actual studies showing they are easier, I'm interested. Enthusiastic claims from members of the community don't count, sadly.
BeetleB 5y ago
Python was well established long before Django came around. Although Numpy existed for a while, most Python developers did not use it till the late 2000's. Python's rise in popularity is probably because it was a much nicer alternative to Perl. The percentage of non-programmers I would encounter using Python was significantly higher than those using Perl. And then there was its "batteries included" philosophy. And, of course, it came preinstalled with most Linux distributions.

by yissp 5y ago

giancarlostoro 5y ago

I think major libraries like Django or Rails are what push a language forward. Look at Go as a big example of this, it had a web server that was production ready built-in. People went with it and are still going with it. It's one of the things that attracts me to Racket above all other Lisp (or lisp like languages) because I can: make a server, make a gui, do front-end web styling all in Racket all out of the box. I also kind of like Clojure cause of Lein (a package manager that will install Clojure for you as long as you have the JVM setup, making your life stupidly easier). I think the stronger the standard library, the more likely your language will be adopted. If anyone out there is building a language and has strong funding, invest in database drivers and a strong web framework that compliments your language and showcases its capabilities. I would love for D's Vibe.d to be more polished, seems they got as far as they wanted to and stopped, I havent seen much new in half a decade compared to other web frameworks.

dorfsmay 5y ago

For Python: - extremely simple, easy to learn. - progressive learning (you can start with very little knowledge and add later) - strongly encouraging a single way to do things, promoting readability - minimal scalfolding - write once, run everywhere (in theory) - many included libraries + a large ecosystem I used to write in Perl and had to constantly go back to the book to get the syntax right, and one day tried Python, and cut my time to write stuff in half, was able to reread and understand my code, and so were others.

goatlover 5y ago
> strongly encouraging a single way to do things, promoting readability This doesn't seem to be so true nowadays. Python gives you lots of ways to do many things.

e3bc54b2 5y ago

My earliest exposure for Python was from Linux distros. Originally Perl was used for stringing together a Linux distribution, but then Python took over the role, slowly. Batteries included stdlib helped a lot there, and also because there wasn't much else like it back then (remember, Python is older than Java). And then since it was already there, everybody suggested it and used it as introduction to programming. Incidentally (or not) it was also intended for and suitable for first time programmers with ridiculously simple syntax and so it became the lingua franca of programming lessons everywhere. I suspect that (along with excellent C/C++ interop) had a chance in getting it picked up as front end for ML frameworks, and then here we are.

taeric 5y ago

Python got a huge uptake as developers tried dodging system requirements. That is, it was not uncommon to have a requirement that you cannot install new languages. But you could pip install dependencies, as that did not necessarily change the full system. So, since Python was already installed, it had a toe in the door that the likes of Ruby did not. Granted... Dependency management in Python has revealed itself to be a minefield...

hiptobecubic 5y ago
This kind of answer really ignores almost all of why these languages have done well. They are easy to learn. Relatively speaking, especially at the time they were gaining popularity, they were far easier to learn gradually and still be productive than almost everything else available. Their communities adopted explicit "this language is for DOING shit understandably, not golfing, not squeezing cpu cycles, not researching type systems, not timtowtdi, etc." That helped tremendously. In pythons case, it was very easy to wrap up C and C++ code and lift it into a nice environment with a repl and everything else you need to experiment. This put it in an excellent position to grow along with the scientific community. Numpy was a huge asset here. The rise of rails, Django, heroku, MacBooks as the dominant coding environment etc all fostered an environment where coding went from being nerd shit to being fashionable. This ushered in the era of "people who code for reasons other than being huge fucking computer nerds," in which the benefits of Python and Ruby mentioned above became even more relevant.
- taeric 5y ago
  I balk heavily at the idea that python is truly easier to learn. In large because it is actually quite hard for me to pick up some random python and really be able to follow it. Most of the claim of what the community in successful languages did, is so steeped in confirmation and survivor bias that it is hard to see it as more than just popular marketing. So. No. I am not ignoring these claims. But nor will I assume their truth. If you have actual studies showing they are easier, I'm interested. Enthusiastic claims from members of the community don't count, sadly.

BeetleB 5y ago

Python was well established long before Django came around. Although Numpy existed for a while, most Python developers did not use it till the late 2000's. Python's rise in popularity is probably because it was a much nicer alternative to Perl. The percentage of non-programmers I would encounter using Python was significantly higher than those using Perl. And then there was its "batteries included" philosophy. And, of course, it came preinstalled with most Linux distributions.