Fw: Swaying A Coder Away From Python

[Tim Williams]

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From: DevWebProUK  devwebprouk at ientrynetwork.net
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Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2006 10:14 PM
Subject: Swaying A Coder Away From Python

Swaying A Coder Away From Python

By David A. Utter

One programmer blogged about the powerful attraction he is feeling to
C# programming, and                    departing from six years of
tinkering with Python. On a higher level, a battle between Python and
C# could be seen as Google versus Microsoft, since Python's creator
Guido van Rossum joined Google in December 2005. But legions of  C#
developers in Redmond may be content to bring over other Python
devotees one at a time.

Michal Wallace would be one of those Python followers. He has spent
the past several                    years in Python's embrace. Judging
from a recent post  Wallace made, he's found a knife named C# and is
ready to cut  himself free from Python, for a few reasons.

"One problem is that python tools suck," he wrote. Wallace compared 
the various IDEs and other developer tools available to Microsoft's
freely available Visual Studio Express and called them "toys."

He also  listed a few reasons why C# appeals to him over Python or Java:


�                     anonymous functions (delegates)
�  a python-like  yield statement
�  a nice type system with generics
�  interfaces
�  properties                    (Yay!!)
Wallace also cited the "huge number of developers" doing .Net as
another reason to switch to C#.   "Thanks to Microsoft's reach, .NET
is a much bigger pond than python. I can hire .NET developers
anywhere, or if i want, I  can get a job as a .NET developer," he
wrote.



IBM developer and well-known Apache contributor Sam Ruby suggested
diversification is the way to happiness: "My first recommendation
aligns with Aristotle's: diversify. I didn't do                    any
Perl in the past week, but I did do Python, PHP, Ruby, and 
JavaScript. In pond size terms, PHP is huge and growing."

Burningbird blogger Shelley Powers sees some problems with the P
section of ONLamp, consisting of Python,    Perl, and PHP. Based on
her perspective,  "in St. Louis, the demand is for .NET (VB or C#) or
Java.   That's it. I mean, that's really it. Most of the other work in
                   PHP or Python or Perl is off-shored.

Microsoft's Don Dodge blogged about .NET's strong points for C#
developers: Microsoft                    .Net is now the most popular
development platform in the world. It supports lots of different
languages, has an awesome IDE, and integrates with slick QA and code
management tools.                    The .Net community provides tons
of support, code samples,    test cases, and advice.

Now Wallace has arguments for and against the switch.

                   ________________________________
                   About the Author:
David Utter is a staff  writer for WebProNews covering business an  technology.