[BangPypers] Future of Python Programmers

[Anand Balachandran Pillai]

On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 8:43 AM, Noufal Ibrahim <noufal at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 12:40 AM, nikunj badjatya
> <nikunjbadjatya at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dear all BangPyPers,
> >
> > I couldnt attend the January's user group meeting becoz of unforseen
> > circumstances.
> > I have one important question to ask to all of you,
> > I am a fresher, recently completed my graduation, had started working on
> > python 2 months back..!! and I just fell in love with the language. I
> want
> > to learn more about it.
> > The only concern is there arent enough companies which work on Python. (
> > correct if I am wrong?? )[..]
>
> Technologies which companies work on will change continuously. If the
> only criterion you have for selecting a language to learn is
> employability, then COBOL or Java would be the best candidates.
>
> Not that there's anything wrong with programming purely as a job but I
> suspect that many people on this list learn and do Python just because
> they love the language and the technologies associated with it.
>
> The key to being employable is adaptability. You can become a
> specialist in a domain perhaps but becoming a specialist *only* in a
> single language is flirting with career suicide.
>
>
 Yes, don't make the mistake of confusing industry "platforms" with
programming languages. For example, on the Windows/.NET
 "platform" the primary language is C#, but you can get by with
 VB, C++ or more recently even Python (IronPython). It is
 true that java is more of a platform than just a programming
 language, but then java is a language sponsored by Sun and
 is of a different genre.

 Python as a language is right now at cross-roads in terms of
 implementation, performance, versioning (2 vs 3 dilemma) and
 will perhaps change a lot during the next 2-3 years. However
 companies like Google are betting on Python (or their
 thinking of what "Python" should be), so the language clearly
 has a lot of scope. As Noufal said, don't become a language
 specialist, as that amounts to limiting yourself too much
 upfront. You should on the other hand get experience on
 domains of your liking (web, networking/security, mobile,
 games/multimedia etc) and then pick and choose tools including
 languages that fit the job. In my experience, companies prefer
 well-skilled generalists than deeply skilled specialists, unless
 one is an ultimate genius in what he does and irreplacable.


--Anand



> --
> ~noufal
> http://nibrahim.net.in
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-- 
--Anand