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The Python Paradox, by Paul Graham
GnuVince writes "Paul Graham has posted a new article to his website that he called "The Python Paradox" which refines the statements he made in "Great Hackers" about Python programmers being better hackers than Java programmers. He basically says that since Python is not the kind of language that lands you a job like Java, those who learn it seek more than simply financial benefits, they seek better tools. Very interesting read."
Right on. I wish employers/customers would take a look at the verity of your programming skills and not the number of years programming in one language. So what if you have 10 years of programming VB. Even if you have to program a VB app if you see a person with 3 years experience in VB and 7 Years in a buch of other languages it shows that this guy know how to program and is flexible to work around problems. Unlike possibly the 10 year VB guy who knows all the prebuilt widgets but something outside those widgets becomes impossible for him. I can't even count the number of times I helped people program on languages that I never used before (and they were soposed to be the experts) (I even helped out the Microsoft Guy in the 2003 Linux world expo in .Net) It is because I know a lot of languages and I can use concepts from the different ones and relate it to different languages. I also hate it when a customer tells you that they need an application written in this language to do this. My view is use the correct language for the job and I hate being forced to use a language that is not well optimized for the job. It is like someone telling someone when they build a house that they have to use this screwdriver and only this screwdriver to build a house. Someone who is truly a professional knows the different tools available and will use them when needed.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
n 1960, a researcher interviewed 1500 business-school students and
classified them in two categories: those who were in it for the
money - 1245 of them - and those who were going to use the degree to do
something they cared deeply about - the other 255 people. Twenty years
later, the researcher checked on the graduates and found that 101 of
them were millionaires?and all but one of those millionaires came from
the 255 people who had pursued what they loved to do!
Research on more than 400,000 Americans over the past 40 years
indicates that pursuing your passions - even in small doses, here and
there each day - helps you make the most of your current capabilities
and encourages you to develop new ones.
Dyslexics have more fnu.
I use Perl, Python, Ruby, Lisp, Scheme...
Out of those, Python is probably the least Lisp-like, and the worst designed (well, okay, yes, Perl's design is *much* worst, but it can be massaged into doing lots of cool stuff).
Yet PG brings it up all the time when he talks about Lisp. To me Lisp and Python are like night and day. How do you create anonymous functions and pass them as variables in Python? You can't, only "lambda *expressions*" which is a strange and arbitrary distinction. In Lisp, creating functions on the fly is the norm. Python doesn't have macros, or even blocks like smalltalk or Ruby, which again is one of the best things about Lisp, allowing you abstract and refactor the flow of code itself. In Python, you have arbitrary but fixed structures bolted on, like comprehensions, or tuples. In Lisp, you can create new constructs on the fly, using the same syntax as everything else.
In my opinion Python is like the Java of the open source world: tons of people use it, they think it's great because it's a lot better than whatever they used last year (C++, Perl, etc), and they don't realize (or care) there are better languages that can help them work faster.
Maybe Paul should adjust his spiel to simply say: the more obscure a language a person has mastered, the more likely he is a smart self-motivated programmer.
But even that isn't true all the time...
If you combine the java Collections with the Jakarta Collections library then you have an almost unbeatable combination (beaten perhaps only by Lisp and its treatement of collections, lists etc).
I admit that there are a myriad of redundant and (mostly) confusing and unnecessary standards. But you shouldn't complain that so many XML parsing toolkits exist, that gives you the freedom to choose the one thats right for a given application.
And after all, isnt that what this is all about? Categorising one programmer as better than another because of their programming language is like saying that surgeons are better than barbarians. Both use blades, but you dont want to perform heart operations with a longsword!
Pardon me while I go build a better mouse trap, pontificate on how much better it is and what a great mouse catcher I am, and then put it in my hamster's cage to prove it.
Anyway, something like that. Here is the closest he comes to a paradox:
First, employers are always looking for people who go above and beyond the bare-minimum, including people who like what they're doing enough to do it even when they aren't paid. That doesn't constitute a paradox. Second, as soon as people widely believe that it is a good standard for hiring programmers (meaning it really is the language to learn to get a job), people will start learning it merely to get a job, so I'm not sure his statement really even makes sense.
So, while I'm not saying anything about his statement that python programmers are better (since I'm not a very good programmer in any sense, and wouldn't know to argue), describing it as a "paradox" seems like pseudo-intellectual camouflage for a "Python RULES!" article.
Don't rely on Java books when you're judging it. Most (almost all) Java books are completely worthless. Before you think I'm a nut, let me explain.
There's a mindset in corporate/professional comp sci I like to call "fat book syndrome". It works like this: a developer, usually a consultant, wants to be successful. So he spends time in Borders on a regular basis, buying new books with which he can expand his skills. Does he look at the thin, little books? No. He looks at the fat, weighty books. He reasons, "if I read that whole, big, fat book, I'll know everything and I'll be an alpha geek". Hence the increasing weight/volume of textbooks these days -- authors want their book to be the big, fat book the ambitious developer selects.
Now, you've got two related effects here.
First, the developer is adopting protective camoflage in the office, by building up a huge stockpile of big, fat books to match his fellow developer's stockpile of big, fat books. This is very similar to the United States and Russia building up their nuke stockpiles. Periodically, there's a crisis: "OH MY GOD" our hero will cry, "Dave just bought Design Patterns!" and he'll go to Borders after work and buy the latest boat anchor from the Gang of Four.
The matching effect on the Author's side is, authors want to sell books. Developers are buying fatter and fatter books, so the authors want their latest books to be even fatter than the last set. So, the books are growing, and it's mostly protective camoflage just like the fat book collection on the developer's bookcase. There's a sort of symbiosis going on, if you think about it. Everyone's yelling "FATTER! FATTER!" so that soon, you'll need luggage to bring your newest books to work.
Having said all that, what makes all this extra funny is, to learn any language, all you really need is a little review book (to master the syntax) and AN INTERNET CONNECTION. Wanna learn Java? Go to Barnes and Noble (those bookstores again) and get a lovely little book called "Java: Practical Guide for Programmers" by Zbigniew Sikora (it's 171 pages long, you can finish it in a couple of nights). Then, go online and read the Java tutorial, and any FAQs you can find on the various tools. Then start doing a project and consult the API reference.
There's no need for all those big, dumb books. Most of them are crammed with nonsense filler, and the samples are only as good as the author is skilled as a programmer.
Anyway, sorry to ramble for so long, but don't sell Java short just because all the books suck. The language itself is pretty nice. Get a SMALL book to get up to speed, dig around on the internet, and you'll find things a lot more friendly.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Not trolling here, but this opinion piece is stupid. Hell, just look at that quote above. "He couldn't be a first rate hacker since he obviously chose NT voluntarily." According to the author, there's no way to succeed if you choose to build on NT.
Knowing Python doesn't make you a "first rate hacker". Any decent programmer can pick up a language like python in a day or two. A good hacker (i.e. a programmer that a company would want to hire) is someone who can take their previous experience and apply that to the problem at hand, using the tools available. Saying "...but I know Python" is the same as saying "...but I know Assembly" when you have a bunch of C++ code to write.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Don't really see how you can compare a scripting language with an OO development language.
Python clearly is an object-oriented development language; it even has multiple inheritance. Python is pretty close in its semantics to Smalltalk, and there are several native compilers and environments for Python. So, Python really is much more than a "scripting language".
It's not clear that Java should even be called "object oriented". Alan Kay said "I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind." Well, Java's object system is even more restrictive than C++'s.
So, yes, it does make sense to talk about Java and Python and compare them.
It's a really nice idea, with great direct effects and horrible side-effects.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
From http://www.paulgraham.com/javacover.html :
...
I've never written a Java program, never more than glanced over reference books about it
Do I need to add more?