How popular is Python, anyway? (was: Long Live Python!)

Peter Hansen peter at engcorp.com
Thu Jul 12 21:26:00 EDT 2001


Grant Edwards wrote:
> 
> In article <slrn9kpr3e.527.sill at sill.silmarill.org>, Rainy wrote:
> 
> >I doubt I'll find a job using python any time soon. :/
> 
> Probably not if you wait around for management to tell you to
> start using it.
> 
> I use Python on my job because I decided to.  I'm probably
> luckier than most when it comes to being able to choose my
> tools.

Even if one is not officially "allowed" to use Python on a project,
there's nothing stopping one from following the recommendation
often seen here, of using Python to prototype a solution and
debug an algorithm, and then to port the result to the mandated
target language.

After one's productivity and morale goes up significantly 
for no apparent reason, it might not be quite as hard to
advocate a more official role for Python...

There's also always the slight more devious ("guerrilla") 
approach of writing useful utilities in your own time (you 
know, the extra ten to twenty unpaid hours a week you spend 
at work) which then are surreptitiously integrated into the
work environment (maybe using py2exe to disguise them :),
at which point it becomes difficult for management to 
justify rewriting them all and poof, Python is an 
official part of the scenery.

(This latter is difficult to do if you have a manager 
like me, who rigorously controls the languages used for
all development and has periodically demanded that
certain newly developed small tools be rewritten in
the official languages.  Of course, if you have a
manager like me, I'm asking you to rewrite Perl code
in Python anyway, so maybe it's not a problem. :)

-- 
----------------------
Peter Hansen, P.Eng.
peter at engcorp.com



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