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Right, definitely not. From my perspective, Python became popular as the simplest and friendliest general scripting language along the lines of Perl or TCL, an
by iainmerrick 5y ago
Right, definitely not.
From my perspective, Python became popular as the simplest and friendliest general scripting language along the lines of Perl or TCL, and the easiest for somebody familiar with other languages like C or Java to pick up.
If I wanted to do something just a bit too fiddly for a shell script, I'd reach for Python (and still do, although I've recently started using Node too).
Perl initially became popular as the best text-wrangling language for CGI scripts and the like, but (I think) was a bit too weird to be a general-purpose hit for the masses like Python. Likewise Tcl/Tk was great for whipping up quick UIs, but both parts seemed a little too weird to stand on their own.
Ruby was another strong contender; I think Python was already too well-established to be displaced by Ruby, but Ruby found its audience via Rails (which I'm guessing is better than Django).
- somejan 5y agoRails was the first of that type of web framework. Django and all similar frameworks are Rails clones. At that time Rails was the killer app for Ruby. Unfortunately for Ruby the other languages were willing to put in the effort to copy it, and Rails is no longer a unique advantage.
- iainmerrick 5y agoDjango and all similar frameworks are Rails clones. Hmm, are you sure? I’m not saying you’re wrong, because I’m not sure myself! I heard of Django before I ever heard of Rails but that doesn’t mean much. Wikipedia suggests they were released at around the same time -- Django started slightly earlier, Rails open sourced earlier.
- crucialfelix 5y agoZope was the leader in python long before Django or rails. Since 1999 ColdFusion and JSP and PHP were dominant for a long time before Rails as well.
- iainmerrick 5y agoAha, yes, I was getting mixed up between Zope and Django!