Ask HN: Python gaining popularity

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1749494

by ashitvora • 16 years ago

62 93 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

These days I see a lot of startup using Python. Earlier it used to be PHP, then came era of Ruby (mainly because of Ruby on Rails) and now it is Python.

Any special reason or everybody is just going with the flow or am I missing something?

smoody• 16 years ago

I thought javascript/node.js is the new hotness. It's so hard to keep up with the latest trends!

code_duck2• 16 years ago

It's still kind of for early adopters, trendsetters and those who like to live on the edge. It's not well known outside of places like this.

In the mainstream, I definitely have seen a trend where people moving past PHP, or designer types new to web programming, pick either Ruby or Python, and between Ruby and Python, Python is gaining ground.

jb552• 16 years ago

Just recently one of my college professors said Python was not a 'production level' language. I just came back from an internship where they wouldn't even install Python on the server and told me to use 'Powershell' instead. The majority of the world is still running mostly on Java and C#, let alone something as 'radical' such as Python or node.js. It's amazing the amount of resistance I came up against in the 'real world' of things which seemed so common place here on hacker news or reddit.

It's possible I just live in the wrong area and I'm going to the wrong schools, but that has been my experience so far.

alextingle2• 16 years ago

Powershell? hahaha!

barnaby3• 16 years ago

"Real world" is an odd concept in college. Python is used A LOT in the real world, including NASA and many fortune 500 companies.

Just because there is still more COBOL code running in the "real world" than there is C# code doesn't mean C# is 'radical'.

Plus HackerNews readers are likely to be less concerned with what people used 5 years ago when they started the projects that are big today (e.g. Java etc.) they're more interested in what people are using _NOW_ to make the projects that will be big tomorrow (e.g. Python)

simonw3• 16 years ago

Ask your professor if he's heard of the Large Hadron Collider. Or YouTube.

nailer4• 16 years ago

If it's a .net shop, get vs2010 or the free as in beer version and install iron python. Bang, every .net classs available via a language that doesn't suck.

all• 16 years ago

Perhaps share these pages with your professor:

http://python.org/about/success/

http://python.about.com/od/gettingstarted/ss/whatispython_3....

I'd say your prof is pretty myopic.

Of the success stories, I particularly like this email about Python on NYSE from 2003:

http://code.activestate.com/lists/python-list/%3COF78FB9C74....

staunch• 16 years ago

                                  /-> Ruby on Rails
    C++ -> Java -> Perl -> PHP -> 
                                  \--> Python

po3• 16 years ago

    C++ --> Java --> Java
                 \--> Ruby on Rails
                  \--> Python/Django,etc…
                   \--> Javascript/Node.js/Sammy, etc…
                    \--> Scala/Lift                     
    PHP ----------------> (still going…)
    Perl -----> (???)

SwellJoe3• 16 years ago

This is kind of nonsensical.

Ruby and PHP are direct descendants of Perl (which is still going). Ruby merged Perl with Smalltalk, roughly, and PHP merged Perl with a box of hammers (nevermind that not all problems involve nails), while removing a number of "hard" features in Perl, like first-class functions and closures.

Python is not on the C++/Java timeline, either, coming from ABC and others.

JavaScript is a descendant of Scheme (with C-like syntax).

Scala/Lift is not popular enough to really deserve mention among the rest of this bunch of languages, all the rest of which have been extraordinarily popular and used by millions of programmers.

julian372• 16 years ago

What is this diagram supposed to mean? Apparently it's not "X evolved from Y" as, say, Perl is not derived from Java. It also can't be "X was popular (for web applications) after Y" as surely Perl was more popular prior to Java and C++ was never really popular in this area (and continues to be popular in others). "X is superior to Y" would be comparing apples to oranges. What am I missing?

po3• 16 years ago

I think he's trying to show the progression of the popular consensus of "the new web framework". Either that or he's showing what he thinks is the average developer's progression through frameworks.

My alternate one is showing what I think is the popular consensus of which framework to use. It branches out at the end because we don't have consensus yet.

buro9• 16 years ago

My guess is that he was trying for the programmers hierarchy in ASCII: http://i.imgur.com/G7WyP.gif

vaksel• 16 years ago

I think the main reason is because Google uses Python, so many of the top programmers learn it.

chc2• 16 years ago

This is the real reason AFAICT. Anybody who tries to pin it on Python's obvious superiority to Ruby is just not paying attention. They're not the same, but not so different that one has a clear advantage over another in most people's minds.

_cbsz• 16 years ago

Speaking as a Python person who recently had to dig through a Ruby project, I can see why people like Ruby and RoR (lack of explicit return statements make your code look functional, lack of parens makes your code look minimal, it's nice to have "unless"), but it is not for me.

(I will not go into Ruby's disadvantages nor direct language comparison because I don't want this thread to devolve into a language flamewar.)

beambot• 16 years ago

Personally, I attribute its use (at least in science / engineering) to the numpy, scipy, matplotlib combo. It makes prototyping fast, flexible, and rivals (surpasses IMO) Matlab.

daniel02216• 16 years ago

Anything is better than Matlab.

sunqiang2• 16 years ago

and IPython, it's a import part of NumPy/SciPy/MatplotLib family, offers a great many convenience features, such as tab-completion of python functions and a good help system. not to mention the new ZeroMQ messaging design(http://ipython.scipy.org/doc/nightly/html/development/messag...).

alextingle2• 16 years ago

I disagree. I use Python because when I was forced reluctantly to use it, I found that I already knew it! I was simply amazed how far I could get by simply guessing the syntax.

"import flight" indeed.

That was all long before Google started to aggressively adopt it.

carbon83• 16 years ago

Since you are comparing it to PHP and Ruby, it appears that your comment refers to their use in web development. I can't say much about the broader use of the languages, but here is some perspective regarding the web development side.

A little over a year ago I compared the jobs available for PHP, Django and Rails (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=805931). I did the same again 3 months ago (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1459119). A quick glance now shows the same trend and ratios (eg, simply hired has 20,125 PHP jobs, a 25% increase in 3 months; 5,334 Rails jobs, a 39% increase in 3 months; and 1,153 Django jobs, a 25% increase in 3 months).

TL;DR: PHP, Django and Rails jobs are all on the rise, there are vastly more PHP jobs than either Rails or Django jobs and there are many more Rails jobs than Django jobs, and this applies to startups, too.

barnaby3• 16 years ago

Wait, that makes no sense. Why compare a language like PHP with a framework like Rails or Django. Shouldn't you compare CakePHP, Symfony, or Zend, instead of PHP? Or compare PHP against Python and Ruby?

stevenwei• 16 years ago

Practical considerations I would assume: Django dominates the large majority of Python jobs, while Rails dominates the large majority of Ruby jobs out there. PHP has a much more divided split.

carbon83• 16 years ago

Python is used extensively outside of web development, PHP is not. Django is far more prevalant than other Python web frameworks, eg, Django 1168 vs Pylons 143 on SimplyHired.

Also, if you follow my links you'll see that the subjects of the comparison originally came from a poll.

wahnfrieden• 16 years ago

A large part of it is that Django is maturing and gaining traction as a great alternative to frameworks like Rails. Many of the complaints of Rails, such as extensive magic and monkeypatching, are less of a problem with Django, so to many it's a fresh breath of air.

atomical• 16 years ago

Could this be seen as a correction in the market? Is the market reacting to technologies (i.e. Django and ROR) that are speeding up development times as well as improving productivity?

trustfundbaby2• 16 years ago

I'd like to think this was the case, but I think they're just going with the hot new thing.

If Python on Skates took off tomorrow, every startup would start using it ...

FraaJad• 16 years ago

When RoR was all the rage (the one-true-rage even!) couple of years back, there were a lot of people in the Python world, who were concerned that Ruby might steal the thunder from Python.

Python people attacked this "problem" in multiple ways. One was the emergence of competing frameworks like Django and Pylons. The other was to work hard on other product lifecycle stories. Some of which were influenced by what was gaining traction elsewhere (automated deployments, TDD). But, some new things also took flight in the Python world, like WSGI, which inspired similar endeavours (Rack, Plack/Perl).

Also, Python has better overall ecosystem. You want libraries for obscure (say HVAC) protocol, you have a better chance of finding it in Python, than in Ruby.

I think more developers relate to "don't be too clever" attitude taken by python than admitted among this crowd.

While RoR was busy redefining the entire Ruby ecosystem in it's own image, Python people were busy building stuff that were truly framework agnostic. Eg: Paste, WSGI, SQLAlchemy, Various templating languages like Jinja2, Mako.

Today, it is very easy choose from many competing python frameworks without drinking any one brand of kool-aid.

vineetm• 16 years ago

+1 Python stands tall with its rich library, for a relatively recent convert from java to python it was nice to see such vast applicability of a language and also the support it enjoys outside the typical commercial / "web" worlds.

barnaby3• 16 years ago

Wow that's a really well thought out answer, I totally agree.

I am always amazed when I find that Python has a library for _X_ whenever I need it... and not just some project on github, a stable project that's in a mature release, and flexable enough to be used in any setting/framework/etc.

Kilimanjaro• 16 years ago

I started using Python because of Google AppEngine.

rtra• 16 years ago

Yeah. I wish heroku offered more than 5MB on its' freebie plan.

waleedka• 16 years ago

Same here. I learned Python out of curiosity, but started using it for real work only after the Google App Engine launched. I hear similar anecdotes from others as well.

znt• 16 years ago

Same here, but then I learned that there're projects focused on running Ruby on AppEngine.

http://code.google.com/p/appengine-jruby/wiki/GettingStarted

Tichy3• 16 years ago

What's the status, though? Last time I looked (several months ago), sloooow startup time was a real problem for that approach.

SriniK• 16 years ago

Pesonally, I like Python because it is simple, oo, lot simpler to debug and goes well with javascript/json(utf-8 by default).

I am big fan of Tornado - tornadoweb.org

Almost free hosting by google appengine is not bad either!

Kaizyn• 16 years ago

Basically, you're seeing just as much Python as ever. However, because Rubyists aren't making such a spectacle of themselves, you don't hear as much about Ruby/Rails as you used to. And what you do hear doesn't get as much traction as it used to because after several years of ruby news the community has grown more tired of it.

shadowsun73• 16 years ago

I think you're right on this one. The idea that Python is suddenly experiencing a reemergence doesn't feel right to me - it makes more sense to talk about this trend in terms of relative activity.

Note: I use and love Python, and I'm doing my startup in Python, but I'll admit that I don't know much about the Ruby community. I will say, however, that we decided early on not to use RoR because of its scaling issues.

binomial3• 16 years ago

Subtle trolling.

mikeklaas• 16 years ago

The situation with writing web apps with Python has changed dramatically over the last 3-4 years and I think you are giving it too little credit.

Back then, there wasn't one obvious place to start with web app development with Python. Frameworks existed, sure, but there were too many and none were as good as rails. Django changed that, arguably helped along by Guido's pronouncement as the "official" way to go.

Tichy3• 16 years ago

Is Django really good, though? Everytime I look at it I end up thinking "eeeew, why do they do it like that". That it is popular is no indicator - PHP is popular, too.

Trying to remember some examples that I didn't like. The ORM mapper was ugly, and I think the templating system is really inflexible - like you can not use it isolated from Django, or it couldn't do "inheritance", or something like that.

enko• 16 years ago

I think that "bad technology" can kill a startup, but slightly different variations of good technology don't have much effect. Choose what you know/like best. And Ruby and Python are both in this latter category.

I think it's just that Ruby enjoyed a brief surge of hype which pushed it to the forefront of the startup founders' mind; this has now ebbed a bit and Python use rises up to its natural level.

I wonder if Ruby will come back a bit, though. There hasn't been much hype, but in the last few months the Ruby community has really gone for broke, with rails 3, ruby 1.9.2, rvm reaching maturity and bundler to handle dependencies. Things are changing so fast I think the magnitude of the changes haven't sunk in for most people but it's a whole new environment and really impressive IMO.

FlemishBeeCycle2• 16 years ago

As a person who uses Ruby as their primary language, I regularly take a look at Python, hoping that something really draws me in - but nothing ever does. Not because I have an issue with Python, but rather because it's just too similar to Ruby (or Ruby too similar to Python, take your pick). I feel that my time would be better spent learning a language that will expand my mind more.

stesch• 16 years ago

I used Ruby and switched to Python. Most of the answers to my questions got answered with links to Python solutions and code.

At some time I decided to give it a try and wasn't disappointed.

aberkowitz• 16 years ago

There is something about Python that everybody likes, whether it's the syntax, functional programming features, NumPy or one of the other numerous libraries. This quiet support allows Python to remain potent while fads die down.

AndyKelley2• 16 years ago

Or the readability.

clyfe• 16 years ago

http://github.com/languages

scalyweb3• 16 years ago

Thanks for the link and for those that aren't aware Github was written in ROR. No idea if it is still based on ROR. The Rails repository moved to Github when Github launched.

http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/4/11/rails-premieres-on-g....

I'm sure Bitbucket would probably show a slightly different breakdown of language use by it's customers. Anyone have links for that?

ashleyw• 16 years ago

Definitely. GitHub is the de-facto home for rubyists, so it's no surprise to me that it's the most popular language there.

simonw3• 16 years ago

GitHub is still Rails for the frontend, but they have a fascinating combination of bits and pieces of Ruby, Erlang, Node.js and even some Python running the backend.

nivertech• 16 years ago

4 reasons, why Python more popular than Ruby:

1. Google App Engine

2. Good webdev ecosystem (Django,etc.)

3. Science/Engineering and Machine Learning libraries - replacement to Matlab

4. Good support for system scripting

gjm11• 16 years ago

It seems immensely unlikely that Python is more popular than Ruby because it has a good web development ecosystem, given that the one thing everyone knows about Ruby is that it has a good web development ecosystem.

(Note that this applies even if, contrary to conventional wisdom, Rails is really no good at all; and even if Django is spectacularly good. As long as "everyone knows" that Rails is a superb web development framework, Python is not going to be more popular than Ruby for having a good web development framework. For the avoidance of doubt, I have no particular view on the merits of RoR and Django; I haven't used either.)

FooBarWidget• 16 years ago

Ruby has good support for system scripting as well. Heck, it has great support for system scripting; I've switch from shell scripting to Ruby and never looked back since. String manipulation and piping are extremely easy to do in Ruby, in my opinion more so than in Python because of e.g. language support for regular expressions. Python requires regexps to be constructed from strings, unfortunately.

Rake is exactly like Make, except better. It retains Make's simplicity while providing all of Make's power in a turing-complete language that allows me to do whatever I want.

ideamonk• 16 years ago

Many reasons from my PoV.

Recently, I could kick off writing Cocoa apps in PyObjC with very little bit of learning to do. Within a day I feel confident on how to build my app.

I know a few profs who find it easy to train their students in Python and get them productive within a week. Even if its an electronics course. http://pykata.appspot.com/statements/

Besides prototyping/experimenting in Python is much easier. It was zillions of options for whatever you wish to do - webapps, scientific computing, visualization, network apps, interfacing hardware, and what not.

sunqiang2• 16 years ago

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/python http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/ruby

look at the "question tagged" and "Related Tags". maybe ruby is still focus "too much" on rails, on the other side, python has better overall ecosystem.

letflow• 16 years ago

The available jobs data suggests that Ruby is growing faster (note that the absolute numbers are still in favor of python)

http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=python,ruby,java&l=...

aaronblohowiak• 16 years ago

Also, Python's lead is getting larger over time: http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=python,ruby&l=

inovica• 16 years ago

I think what you must be referring to is the adoption of Python for web-based startups. Python has always been popular in certain industries/niches.

From our perspective we use what we feel is best and we use more than one language on some of our projects. For example, we have a LOAD of legacy code in PHP and we use it still quite extensively for some of our sites. We use Python on some of the same sites for parsing and anything requiring heavy lifting.

Ultimately - use what you feel is best for the job at hand

jpspeno• 16 years ago

It's the whitespace. It makes the code more beautiful, and that does matter.

Ask HN: Python gaining popularity

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