Why I don’t worry about Python losing users

http://nothingbutsnark.svbtle.com/why-i-dont-worry-about-pythons-popularity

by ctoth • 12 years ago

19 13 12 years ago

nothingbutsnark.svbtle.com

eridius3• 12 years ago

The described issue is even simpler in shell scripting:

  cat file1.txt file2.txt | tr A-Z a-z | sort | uniq > whitelist.txt

Does this mean people aren't going to move from shell scripting to other languages? No, it just means the task is particularly suited to scripting like this, and Python has affordances for scripting.

vezzy-fnord• 12 years ago

This article is evidence that more people need to invest some time in learning shell scripting.

moe4• 12 years ago

Your solution doesn't do the same thing, though. His code doesn't sort.

mattikus2• 12 years ago

Sure it does: https://gist.github.com/brettcannon/82c4fe68bac30f4ed653#fil...

mattikus2• 12 years ago

It can actually be even simpler:

  sort -u file1.txt file2.txt | tr A-Z a-z > whitelist.txt

eridius3• 12 years ago

You need the -f flag to sort as well to ignore case during the sorting. I don't know how portable the flags to sort are though which is why I didn't bother using them.

mkozlows• 12 years ago

Ten lines of Python? That's a one-liner in Perl, and not one of those over-long ones. So I'd be careful about using that as proof that your language is safe from encroachment.

Really, the time that people start posting "Why Language X Isn't Dying" is about the time you should consider freshening your tech skills to a new language, in my experience.

moe4• 12 years ago

You could also do it in one line:

   cat file1 file2 | awk '!_[tolower($0)]++{ gsub(/^[ \t]+|[ \t]+$/, ""); print}'

Does that mean awk doesn't have to worry either?

maxpersson• 12 years ago

I wouldn't say it's a fair comparison on the amount of code as no exception handling at all was done in Python, where several ifs where used in Go...

clubhi• 12 years ago

I'd like to think Python has more going for it than being a bad Perl

Why I don’t worry about Python losing users

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