[OT] Python like lanugages [was Re: After C++, what with Python?]

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 17 Jan 2011 09:12:04 +0000, Tim Harig wrote:

> Python has been widely used by people like us that happen to like the
> language and found ways to use it in our workplaces; but, most of the
> time it is an unofficial use that the company.  You still don't see many
> companies doing large scale internal development using Python and you
> definately don't see any doing external developement using a language
> that gives the customers full access to the source code.

Careful with the FUD there *wink*

http://www.python.org/about/quotes/


Sometimes giving access to the source code is a feature, not a bug. Just 
ask Red Hat. And for those who think otherwise, you can always ship 
the .pyc files alone. Or turn your software into a web-app.

In any case, most companies, and individuals, follow the crowd. They do 
what everybody else does. There are good reasons for this, as well as bad 
reasons, but the end result is that most companies' software development 
is, quite frankly, crap, using the wrong language and the wrong 
methodology for the wrong reasons. If you doubt this, then perhaps you 
would like to explain why most software projects fail and those that 
don't rarely come in on time or on budget?

It would probably be crap regardless of what language they used 
(Sturgeon's Law), but there are degrees of crap. Being optimized for 
rapid development, at least with Python the average company will develop 
their crap software five times as quickly and at a third the cost than if 
they had chosen C++ or Java.

You should also consider Paul Graham's essay:

http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

He's hot for Lisp, which is fine, but the lessons hold for Python too.



-- 
Steven