3 ms·

I'm a heavy Python user, and have worked with a number of colleagues who have learned it as their first language in my group. And BASIC was my first language.

I'm a heavy Python user, and have worked with a number of colleagues who have learned it as their first language in my group. And BASIC was my first language. I think Python is easy to use as a scripting language thanks to the proliferation of libraries, meaning that you can get things done without touching the obscure stuff. Many users can be quite productive with precisely the subset of Python that's not too different from BASIC. Python adds features faster than I can learn them, and though I'm a productive user, I scored "average" on a skills test.

ExtremisAndy 4y ago
Very good points. My Python skills are such that I would be laughed out of a Python job interview for hilarious incompetence, but the small subset of the language I know and am comfortable with has allowed me to automate all sorts of tasks and saved me an enormous amount of time over the years. What I love about Python is the great spectrum of possibilities with it over quite a range of skill levels!
- analog31 4y ago
  Where my skills lack are in areas that just aren't relevant to my work. The quiz had a lot of questions about the testing infrastructure. Whereas I use Python mostly in Jupyter notebooks, and for laboratory automation. Still, I'm going to take a refresher course next year. I don't want to be the guy who's teaching Python without knowing it.