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>You can be an expert data engineer without knowing any of those thing Yes, but then you're exactly that, an expert data engineer, not an expert python program

>You can be an expert data engineer without knowing any of those thing Yes, but then you're exactly that, an expert data engineer, not an expert python programmer. Extensibility, in particular C interoperability is a core aspect of the language and it's to a non-trivial extent designed around it. Much of Python's utility rests on the fact that libraries exist who make use of this feature, especially in data science! You can be an expert software architect in Lisp and write many programs without resorting to macros, but if you want to call yourself an expert Lisper you'll need to know your macros.

kstrauser 3y ago
I get what you're saying, but I disagree. You can write an awful lot of expert-level Python code without learning C. After all, the result of that interoperability is something that looks and acts like a Python object. It's not like users of that code have to know about C. They just write Python like usual, and it's magically (from their POV) faster than if it were also written in Python. As far as the data engineer bit, that's in the context of this article, which asserts that you need to know libraries predominately used by data engineers in order to be an expert programmer. I disagree, because Python is no more "about" data science than it's "about" web services or platform development or infrastructure management.
- toyg 3y ago
  > Python is no more "about" data science than it's "about" web services or platform development or infrastructure management. Amen, brother. It's incredibly annoying how every new niche that Python accreted over the years, is full of people who firmly believe Python exists only for them. At one point it was LISP refugees, then markup junkies (like me), then sysadmins, then 3d artists (!), then webapp jockeys, and now it's datascience and machine learning. Every kid thinks the world is built for him, but pushing such limited worldviews can only box the community into a corner - just look at Ruby to see what happens then.

kstrauser 3y ago

I get what you're saying, but I disagree. You can write an awful lot of expert-level Python code without learning C. After all, the result of that interoperability is something that looks and acts like a Python object. It's not like users of that code have to know about C. They just write Python like usual, and it's magically (from their POV) faster than if it were also written in Python. As far as the data engineer bit, that's in the context of this article, which asserts that you need to know libraries predominately used by data engineers in order to be an expert programmer. I disagree, because Python is no more "about" data science than it's "about" web services or platform development or infrastructure management.

toyg 3y ago
> Python is no more "about" data science than it's "about" web services or platform development or infrastructure management. Amen, brother. It's incredibly annoying how every new niche that Python accreted over the years, is full of people who firmly believe Python exists only for them. At one point it was LISP refugees, then markup junkies (like me), then sysadmins, then 3d artists (!), then webapp jockeys, and now it's datascience and machine learning. Every kid thinks the world is built for him, but pushing such limited worldviews can only box the community into a corner - just look at Ruby to see what happens then.