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> Newer programmers are not that impressed with either version of Python. Any evidence? If it's personal experience, then mine is exactly the opposite. I don'

> Newer programmers are not that impressed with either version of Python. Any evidence? If it's personal experience, then mine is exactly the opposite. I don't know if such a thing exists, but maybe a big list of the main changes would help convince people more (type annotations, yield from, the forthcoming @ operator). From what I've seen and read, of course all this is somewhere in the docs and release notes, but I've never seen a clean concise list of the main new features, fixes and reasons why these features are cool.

reuven 12y ago
I agree; I have found that people are super-impressed with Python. Specifically, my experience -- teaching Python to dozens of experienced developers every month, for more than four years -- is that people from the C, C++, C#, and Java world and shocked to the core by the ease with which they can do certain things in Python. Maybe a Ruby or JavaScript developer won't be blown over to the same degree. But there are a heckuva lot of people coming from static, compiled languages who haven't ever seen the power and flexibility of Python before, and love what they see.
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  This was my initial reaction after coming from Java, generators, list comprehensions, insanely easy iteration, Python makes a lot of things extremely easy that would take 10+ lines in another language.
- pmontra 12y ago
  I agree with you, as a Ruby developer I'm not blown over when I see Python. I shake my head instead and I try to explain why. All those __method__ and all those mandatory (). The : at the end of lines. Can't the parser know when it's over like Ruby does? An else: on a line of itself is a very odd sight. And why must you have built-in functions and methods mixed into the language? Yes len(), I'm looking at you. I won't even enter into the religious war about semantic spaces, because that's a different story. It might be surprising to many, but Python feels like C to me. Maybe that's why it's popular as a system language. making people feel at home helps. Another reason of its success might be that it is a simpler C so it got many developers coming from C like languages (Java and PHP among the others). As a rubyist I feel as Guido made all sort of wrong decisions while designing Python but as Matz said "I tried to make Ruby perfect for me, but maybe it's not perfect for you. The perfect language for Guido van Rossum is probably Python." So everybody is happy and I think that the news about the demise of Python are greatly exaggerated. It's here to stay for the good and for the bad.
  - influx 12y ago
    That's funny, as a Python person, I think the same thing about the begin and end in Ruby. After awhile, you just get used to whatever language you use most, and those things fade into the background.
crucialfelix 12y ago
I'm still running into php programmers who are just now switching to python/django. They follow the work, and there are a growing number of sites that are now django and need to be worked on.
coldtea 12y ago
I think the idea is "newer programmers" as newer hackers (e.g the HN crowd etc), not "newbies". Sure, people introduced to Python for the first time might find it impressive, but what about people who know Python and also are tempted by Go, Clojure, etc.

reuven 12y ago

I agree; I have found that people are super-impressed with Python. Specifically, my experience -- teaching Python to dozens of experienced developers every month, for more than four years -- is that people from the C, C++, C#, and Java world and shocked to the core by the ease with which they can do certain things in Python. Maybe a Ruby or JavaScript developer won't be blown over to the same degree. But there are a heckuva lot of people coming from static, compiled languages who haven't ever seen the power and flexibility of Python before, and love what they see.

Igglyboo 12y ago
This was my initial reaction after coming from Java, generators, list comprehensions, insanely easy iteration, Python makes a lot of things extremely easy that would take 10+ lines in another language.
pmontra 12y ago
I agree with you, as a Ruby developer I'm not blown over when I see Python. I shake my head instead and I try to explain why. All those __method__ and all those mandatory (). The : at the end of lines. Can't the parser know when it's over like Ruby does? An else: on a line of itself is a very odd sight. And why must you have built-in functions and methods mixed into the language? Yes len(), I'm looking at you. I won't even enter into the religious war about semantic spaces, because that's a different story. It might be surprising to many, but Python feels like C to me. Maybe that's why it's popular as a system language. making people feel at home helps. Another reason of its success might be that it is a simpler C so it got many developers coming from C like languages (Java and PHP among the others). As a rubyist I feel as Guido made all sort of wrong decisions while designing Python but as Matz said "I tried to make Ruby perfect for me, but maybe it's not perfect for you. The perfect language for Guido van Rossum is probably Python." So everybody is happy and I think that the news about the demise of Python are greatly exaggerated. It's here to stay for the good and for the bad.
- influx 12y ago
  That's funny, as a Python person, I think the same thing about the begin and end in Ruby. After awhile, you just get used to whatever language you use most, and those things fade into the background.

crucialfelix 12y ago

I'm still running into php programmers who are just now switching to python/django. They follow the work, and there are a growing number of sites that are now django and need to be worked on.

coldtea 12y ago

I think the idea is "newer programmers" as newer hackers (e.g the HN crowd etc), not "newbies". Sure, people introduced to Python for the first time might find it impressive, but what about people who know Python and also are tempted by Go, Clojure, etc.