5 ms·

How does your theory explain Rust or Python?

by erostrate 5y ago

tgv 5y ago
For Python, the platform is education.
- jfcisco 5y ago
  It also helps that Linux distros usually come with Python
- Jensson 5y ago
  And most educators decided on Python because? You don't think it has anything to do with people liking the language and therefore wanting to use it and teach in it?
  - dijksterhuis 5y ago
    It can also be due to tooling -- once a student has got the python binary installed you can get them writing and running code without having to make sure they have the correct version of x, y, z (don't even need conda or pip) or teaching them what a compiler is etc. Javascript is quite popular as an introductory language too -- students can open up a web browser and type stuff in the console in the middle of a lecture.
    - Qem 5y ago
      I agree. It even features a basic IDE, IDLE, as part of the default install. No need to figure out how to configure your text editor to interact with the Python shell. I remember trying to learn Ruby before Python, several years ago, but then got stuck trying to configure Geany to work with Ruby.
  - Zinu 5y ago
    They chose Python since it's essentially a free, open-source alternative to Matlab. Also, Python is used as a scripting language on top of C, and C is popular.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Why didn't they use Scheme? That was pushed by a very prestigious institution so had some momentum in the education field. Instead they switched to Python and basically nobody uses Scheme to teach any longer. Python won because people preferred it over lisp, simple as that.
      - detaro 5y ago
        Teaching Scheme etc always got pushback from the outside, because regardless of how well it works for education, people get it in their head that you are teaching something that "industry doesn't use" and thus is bad.
    - detaro 5y ago
      in comparatively few places Matlab would have been the alternative.
    - jasode 5y ago
      >They chose Python since it's essentially a free, open-source alternative to Matlab. Different domains of education had different reasons but some classes had nothing to do with Matlab. - The professor Gerry Sussman of the famous MIT 6.001 SICP class said they switched from Scheme to Python because (paraphrasing) it's more high-level with libraries to get immediate work done. (E.g. A class project to control a robot.) - Peter Norvig teaching Artificial Intelligence classes switched from Lisp to Python because he noticed his students kept getting stuck on Lisp syntax instead of progressing on the more important AI concepts. Switching to Python made teaching the class easier. One can google for their interviews on why they switched to Python.
  - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
    > And most educators decided on Python because? Because there was a huge push by the Python designers towards this direction? They got funds from the DARPA in 1999 for a proposal entitled "Computer Programming for Everybody", the first part of which was " Develop a new computing curriculum suitable for high school and college students". The Python project did a lot of outreach and marketing specifically targeted at educators to explain why Python was a great teaching language (and did a lot of work to make it so - don't get me wrong). It worked.
  - Peritract 5y ago
    It's a really intuitive one for new people to learn - you're far from the machine, but the syntax doesn't get in the way of the concepts much. Of all the languages I have taught people in, Python is the quickest route to understanding/independence.
dijksterhuis 5y ago
Python is quite popular with the data / machine learning crowd. Think pandas, tensorflow etc.
- Jensson 5y ago
  Python was popular before those libraries came out though. And then people wrote those libraries in Python because it was popular, making it more popular. People using popular languages to create platforms or on their platforms isn't evidence that having a platform is what drives language popularity.
valenterry 5y ago
Despite Rust being around for quite some time now, highly liked (hyped) by its users and being a good language with many features that make it stand apart while having major commercial support, it's still a very niche language. I think it rather supports the OPs claim.
goto11 5y ago
People are learning Python because they want to do ML or scientific computing - not the other way around. Python has its current popularity because of NumPy and the whole numeric and ML ecosystem. I love Python as a language, but realistically it could just as well have been Ruby or some other language.
- arc-in-space 5y ago
  Python was already quite popular by the time 3.0 came out in 2008, well before the AI summer was in full swing, which is a large part of what drove the popularity of NumPy et al. You're not wrong now, but that's just the chicken, the egg included web applications and its use as a scripting language.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Python was already the scripting language of choice at CERN when I was there about 20 years ago. Summer School computing classes even used to teach unit testing in Python. And the Atlas HLT/DAQ build scripts were based on Python.
- beowulfey 5y ago
  The counter example you’d probably want to use is Julia — it was written with scientific computing in mind, but is nowhere near as popular.
- twistedpair 5y ago
  Seems that NumPy was written in Python b/c the ML community was using Python, not the other way around.
js8 5y ago
Python came with a platform of sorts, its motto was "batteries included", after all.

How does your theory explain Rust or Python?

tgv 5y ago

For Python, the platform is education.

jfcisco 5y ago
It also helps that Linux distros usually come with Python
Jensson 5y ago
And most educators decided on Python because? You don't think it has anything to do with people liking the language and therefore wanting to use it and teach in it?
- dijksterhuis 5y ago
  It can also be due to tooling -- once a student has got the python binary installed you can get them writing and running code without having to make sure they have the correct version of x, y, z (don't even need conda or pip) or teaching them what a compiler is etc. Javascript is quite popular as an introductory language too -- students can open up a web browser and type stuff in the console in the middle of a lecture.
  - Qem 5y ago
    I agree. It even features a basic IDE, IDLE, as part of the default install. No need to figure out how to configure your text editor to interact with the Python shell. I remember trying to learn Ruby before Python, several years ago, but then got stuck trying to configure Geany to work with Ruby.
- Zinu 5y ago
  They chose Python since it's essentially a free, open-source alternative to Matlab. Also, Python is used as a scripting language on top of C, and C is popular.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Why didn't they use Scheme? That was pushed by a very prestigious institution so had some momentum in the education field. Instead they switched to Python and basically nobody uses Scheme to teach any longer. Python won because people preferred it over lisp, simple as that.
    - detaro 5y ago
      Teaching Scheme etc always got pushback from the outside, because regardless of how well it works for education, people get it in their head that you are teaching something that "industry doesn't use" and thus is bad.
  - detaro 5y ago
    in comparatively few places Matlab would have been the alternative.
  - jasode 5y ago
    >They chose Python since it's essentially a free, open-source alternative to Matlab. Different domains of education had different reasons but some classes had nothing to do with Matlab. - The professor Gerry Sussman of the famous MIT 6.001 SICP class said they switched from Scheme to Python because (paraphrasing) it's more high-level with libraries to get immediate work done. (E.g. A class project to control a robot.) - Peter Norvig teaching Artificial Intelligence classes switched from Lisp to Python because he noticed his students kept getting stuck on Lisp syntax instead of progressing on the more important AI concepts. Switching to Python made teaching the class easier. One can google for their interviews on why they switched to Python.
- WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  > And most educators decided on Python because? Because there was a huge push by the Python designers towards this direction? They got funds from the DARPA in 1999 for a proposal entitled "Computer Programming for Everybody", the first part of which was " Develop a new computing curriculum suitable for high school and college students". The Python project did a lot of outreach and marketing specifically targeted at educators to explain why Python was a great teaching language (and did a lot of work to make it so - don't get me wrong). It worked.
- Peritract 5y ago
  It's a really intuitive one for new people to learn - you're far from the machine, but the syntax doesn't get in the way of the concepts much. Of all the languages I have taught people in, Python is the quickest route to understanding/independence.

dijksterhuis 5y ago

Python is quite popular with the data / machine learning crowd. Think pandas, tensorflow etc.

Jensson 5y ago
Python was popular before those libraries came out though. And then people wrote those libraries in Python because it was popular, making it more popular. People using popular languages to create platforms or on their platforms isn't evidence that having a platform is what drives language popularity.

valenterry 5y ago

Despite Rust being around for quite some time now, highly liked (hyped) by its users and being a good language with many features that make it stand apart while having major commercial support, it's still a very niche language. I think it rather supports the OPs claim.

goto11 5y ago

People are learning Python because they want to do ML or scientific computing - not the other way around. Python has its current popularity because of NumPy and the whole numeric and ML ecosystem. I love Python as a language, but realistically it could just as well have been Ruby or some other language.

arc-in-space 5y ago
Python was already quite popular by the time 3.0 came out in 2008, well before the AI summer was in full swing, which is a large part of what drove the popularity of NumPy et al. You're not wrong now, but that's just the chicken, the egg included web applications and its use as a scripting language.
pjmlp 5y ago
Python was already the scripting language of choice at CERN when I was there about 20 years ago. Summer School computing classes even used to teach unit testing in Python. And the Atlas HLT/DAQ build scripts were based on Python.
beowulfey 5y ago
The counter example you’d probably want to use is Julia — it was written with scientific computing in mind, but is nowhere near as popular.
twistedpair 5y ago
Seems that NumPy was written in Python b/c the ML community was using Python, not the other way around.

js8 5y ago

Python came with a platform of sorts, its motto was "batteries included", after all.