Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3

Posted Aug 4, 2021 16:12 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
In reply to: Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3 by HelloWorld
Parent article: Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3

At the time python started becoming popular, the options were:

C/C++ (compiled)
Perl (unsuitable for large projects)
and a bunch of niche languages.

As I said, things are different now, Julia may be a great choice for a new project, so (more likely, for general purpose projects) may Go or Rust or Scala.

"Good language" is not "entirely subjective" any more than taste in music is "entirely subjective". Experts agree that Bach and Beethoven were great.

Paul Graham wrote this about Python in 2004. It is largely true 17 years later, even though the entire landscape has changed. Python may not necessarily be the best choice today for new projects, but it's still a very good choice if they aren't CPU-bound.

Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3

Posted Aug 5, 2021 9:22 UTC (Thu) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link] (1 responses)

Everything Paul Graham says about Python in your linked article equally applies to Perl. Indeed, he even mentions Perl and that his main point applies to it. Yet you claim that Perl is unsuitable for large projects while claiming that Python is somehow objectively a good language. Looks to me like you first picked your conclusion and then looked for arguments supporting this conclusion rather than following the data.

Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3

Posted Aug 5, 2021 9:36 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

Yes, he likes perl except that it looks like a "cartoon character swearing". Superficially but not fundamentally ugly. But he likes python better. So did many, many others. Perl basically fell out of favour because python was easier and better for almost everything.