Is Python overhyped (just like Java)?

[Garen Parham]

Anand B Pillai wrote:

...
> Why would anyone use Python ? Well, first of all it is a true
> object-oriented language in the spirit of Smalltalk/Java whereas
> C++ is not one. It has a clean syntax and comes with many pre-built
> libraries, most of them written in C(CPython) or Java(Jython). It
> is a higher-level programming language when compared to C++, as Alex
> pointed out. 

Come on, lets be honest here.  Things like being a "true" OO language is
pretty subjective without any criteria to qualify what OO is.

...
> 
>  Python on the other hand is a free language developed by a group of 
> programmers based on the idea of software freedom. ...

And here I thought it was just created by Guido to solve some real problems.

...
> 
>   The single biggest advantage of python is SPEED. You can map your
> problem space to solution space with 10% of the time you need to
> prototype
> in C++, in python(Probably lesser, but this question is better
> answered
> by professional python programmers). C++ burdens the programmer with
> mundane
> tasks like freeing memory, declaring headers, writing macros to feed
> the preprocessor, the list is endless. 80% of the time to program a
> C++ project
> is taken in deciding on the code modules, preparing the header files
> and
> the directory structure, deciding which symbols to be
> exposed(exported).

The productivity boost in Python is believable.  The 10% and 80% magic
numbers aren't.  I'm sure you wouldn't like seeing someone pulling out
magic numbers in comp.lang.c++ saying Python was 200%, 5000% slower out
of context.

...
>     Python makes programming fun. 
...
>   Learn python today and you will agree that it was time well spent.

:)