4 ms·

I think you are a bit detached from reality if you think controlling for experience and education would massively change the picture for python, which evidently

by patrec 3y ago

I think you are a bit detached from reality if you think controlling for experience and education would massively change the picture for python, which evidently enjoys above average popularity with anyone from junior devs to elite programmers (such as Google's Director of Research, geohot etc.).

antonvs 3y ago
The issue is what they're educated in. It's not generally programming languages.
- patrec 3y ago
  What makes you think so? If you've got a background in programming languages, maybe you'll roll your eyes at Guido not getting reduce or tail recursion, or CPython's unsophisticated runtime and under-specified/messy semantics, or whatever, but I'm kind of struggling to see why you'd be particularly down on python compared to other languages that (in the average case) have non-negative utility for software development.
  - antonvs 3y ago
    I mentioned Python simply because it was ranked highly in some of these kinds of surveys, even though it has quite a few well-known problems as a language. It demonstrates that ranking in such surveys is not necessarily correlated with the capabilities or fitness for purpose of the language. In some ways, Python is in fact worse than many of the mainstream alternatives - for example, it's not unusual for people to look to rewrite Python systems in some other language because of performance issues at scale. Same (if not worse) goes for Ruby.
brokenkebaby 3y ago
I cannot help but notice that Perl used to be very popular in early web development, sys administration, and in a a row of scientific fields. And lots of people were enthusiastic about it (as witnessed by CPAN content). Then it was declared unsuitable for teaching (many ways to do everything), and the next gen who started with Python usually claim that Perl is bad, while among older generation who matured cooking Perl scripts you still can hear that Python is nothing more than a less flexible, less expressive Perl's bastard child. So yes, I think, education (and the first usable programming language learned in particular) influence popularity very much.

by patrec 3y ago

antonvs 3y ago

The issue is what they're educated in. It's not generally programming languages.

patrec 3y ago
What makes you think so? If you've got a background in programming languages, maybe you'll roll your eyes at Guido not getting reduce or tail recursion, or CPython's unsophisticated runtime and under-specified/messy semantics, or whatever, but I'm kind of struggling to see why you'd be particularly down on python compared to other languages that (in the average case) have non-negative utility for software development.
- antonvs 3y ago
  I mentioned Python simply because it was ranked highly in some of these kinds of surveys, even though it has quite a few well-known problems as a language. It demonstrates that ranking in such surveys is not necessarily correlated with the capabilities or fitness for purpose of the language. In some ways, Python is in fact worse than many of the mainstream alternatives - for example, it's not unusual for people to look to rewrite Python systems in some other language because of performance issues at scale. Same (if not worse) goes for Ruby.

brokenkebaby 3y ago

I cannot help but notice that Perl used to be very popular in early web development, sys administration, and in a a row of scientific fields. And lots of people were enthusiastic about it (as witnessed by CPAN content). Then it was declared unsuitable for teaching (many ways to do everything), and the next gen who started with Python usually claim that Perl is bad, while among older generation who matured cooking Perl scripts you still can hear that Python is nothing more than a less flexible, less expressive Perl's bastard child. So yes, I think, education (and the first usable programming language learned in particular) influence popularity very much.