[Tutor] a quick Q: how to use for loop to read a series of files with .doc end

[Walter Prins]

Lina,

Just a couple of comments on the topic of Python vs other languages to add
to what others have said:

On 7 October 2011 16:40, lina <lina.lastname at gmail.com> wrote:

> but today I was also discouraged, I was told that you should not have
> learned python, you should focus on C or bash, or D, cause python is going
> to be obsolete, and I defensed that I saw lots people/apps using python, and
> it's always good to learn a language well, it's helpful for you to
> understand another language. I was further told that fortran is obsolete,
> but still lots of fortran guys using it.
> I don't know much, since I started and wanted to learn, actually I wish to
> hear some encouraging words, not some words discouraging, but on another
> hands, it's always good to have an open mind, so I want to hear your opinion
> and perspective, I am not knowledgable about this.
>

I'd say rather than being obsolete, Python is, if anything, on the
ascendancy.  My own personal opinion as someone who has been in this game
for a while now and know (for various levels of know) quite a number
languages (e.g. off the top of my head: C, C++, Java, C#, Pascal, Delphi,
Oberon, Python, VB, sql, prolog, Lisp, bash, awk), is that Python is
(generally speaking) one of the "best" languages I've had the pleasure to
work with.  By "best" here I mean that it's useful and available in more
contexts than most of the others, it's better at encouraging good
programming practices, the included as well as third party libraries are
very comprehensive, and usually as good as or better than many of the other
languages I've tried, etc etc, it's fast enough [and in this context I'd
point at the multiple implementations (CPython, IronPython, Jython, PyPy
etc)  as a further advantage, not to mention the fact that you can still
fall back to writing Python modules in C if need be.], it's highly
productive, it keeps you close to the problem domain and usually doesn't
burden you with lower level details, etc etc.  Addiontally, you might be
interested to know that Python is used as one of Google's core 3 languages,
as well as being extensively used in several Linux distributions as a system
utility programming language (for example Redhat, Ubuntu.)

So, for all these reasons (and probably many others I've not mentioned) I
again suggest it's rather a stretch to claim Python is "obsolete".  (I'd
addtionally ask, what does something being "obsolete" mean anyway?  If lots
of people use a languages, is it not then by definition not obsolete?)

I'll also point you at some stats which I dug up (for entertainment value,
or maybe you can use it to counter some of your friend's claims of
obsolescence etc.)
1) According to langpop.com, Python is overall the 6th most popular
language, ahead of C# at no. 7.  D only comes in at no. 28.  (C is at no.1)
There's several ranking listss, and Python is in fact no.1 one on a couple
(the programming.reddit.com ranking and the IRC ranking).
For more see here:  http://langpop.com/

2) On the TIOBE Programming Community Index (Sept. 2011) Python is similarly
ranked at no. 8.  D only re-entered the table recently at no. 20.
For more see here:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

Hope that helps,

Walter
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/tutor/attachments/20111008/eae8411e/attachment.html>