3 ms·

Pretty much. Ecosystem brings most of the value than any programming language.

• posix_monad 3y ago
  It's particular acute with Python. The language itself is poor - the value is in the massive ecosystem (particularly around ML). Compare this to say, Rust, where the safety guarantees are useful in their own right. There would be value in Rust even with zero packages, but I couldn't say the same for Python.
  • globular-toast 3y ago
    > The language itself is poor The language is a joy and one of the main reasons it became popular. How do you think it got its ecosystem?
    • Falell 3y ago
      "worse is better", the fact that a great ecosystem has grown does not necessarily mean the language and its tools are great. Personally, I find the lack of static types makes maintenance a nightmare, and think the build and deployment situation is miserable.
    • ildjarn 3y ago
      It become popular in the era of Java, Perl and object orientated C++
  • colinsane 3y ago
    i'm incredibly suspicious of anyone who compares a language with a repl to one without. as for your 3rd point about packages, just try this: `grep -l '#!.*python' /usr/bin/*` and then run that same command piped into `xargs grep import`. i.e. measure how many applications on your system are importing anything besides the builtins/standard libraries shipped in the base interpreter. for extra fun, try porting the matches above to Rust and see how fun that is without `use clap`/`use structopt` and `use envlogger`. i think you've got the last point completely backward, not that i think it's a particularly important measure of a language anyway.
  • lmm 3y ago
    The language is easy to get started in. A half-an-hour, two-page program is easier to write and read in Python than in almost any other language. And unfortunately most programmers evaluate programming languages by writing a half-an-hour, two-page program in them.