[Tutor] Choice of Python

[Brett Ritter]

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 7:38 AM, Abdulhakim Haliru
<abdulhakim.haliru at leproghrammeen.com> wrote:
> Unlearn my php ways (as that must certainly happen J)  and learn python and
> web development woth python, Jquery etal ?
...
> Is python really worth the pain or should I just skip it ?

If you accept that you'll continue to learn new syntaxes throughout
your career, then the "pain" of python isn't notably different than
any other language (though I have to constantly reteach myself not to
use semicolons :) ).   You aren't "unlearning" so much as
"meta-learning"

That covers the "pain" half of your equation.  As for the Python half
--- Python is pretty widely used in a variety of ways.  It's probably
the most common plugin language for outside utilities (not that
anything is particularly standard in that landscape).  I've noticed
that new language development often compares against Python.
Scientific fields work more and more with Python.

Python won't be your last stop, but it's a valuable one.  As to HOW
valuable, that depends on a bunch of life details we don't know.  If
you want one language to focus on and use exclusively for several
years, Python may or may not be the best choice depending on your
field.  If you want a useful tool that will improve your understanding
of other tools in addition to being useful in its own right, Python is
absolutely a good choice.

All that said, I doubt you'll find many Python Nay-sayers on the
Python Tutors mailing list :)
-- 
Brett Ritter / SwiftOne
swiftone at swiftone.org