Python Moving into the Enterprise

Qa1 writes "Seems that Python is moving into the enterprise. At the recent PyCon it has become apparent that it's not just Google, GIS, Nokia or even Microsoft anymore. The article points out that Python is increasingly becoming a perfectly viable and even preferred choice for the enterprise. More and more companies are looking at Python as a good alternative to past favorites like Java. Will we finally be able to code for living in a language that's not painful? Exciting times!"

Comments

Python *is* painful

[photon317]

Who in the 90's writes a language where whitespace has meaning???

Re:Jython?

[Taladar]

Since the Java Standard Library is output of Java programmers programming Java IS painful.

Python Zealots Are Like Apple Zealots

[hameluck]

The number one complaint about Python is the forced use of whitespace instead of block begin and end delimters.

When some zealot starts pushing Python that's the first thing that they'll also defend. Much like when some zealot starts pushing Macs and the one button mouse is the first thing they'll defend.

It doesn't matter if it's "right" or "wrong". Some people just don't like it. There are no absolute truths when it comes to people's preferences.

It reminds me of a joke I once heard regaing a guy who, after getting hard contact lenses fitted said, "It feels like a toenail is stuck in my eye", to which the optometrist responds, "Don't worry, you'll get used to it." He replied, "If I've got a toenail stuck in my eye I want it out, I don't want to get used to it."

All I can say is there already are a lot of block delimters already in use in Python, e.g.:

foo = {
'a' : [ 1, 2, 3 ],
'b' : [ 4, 5, 6 ]
}

That defines an associate array with a regular array as the value and a string as the key.
Python's statement's like if still require weird syntaxtic sugar (presumably for parsing):

if foo == bar:
print foobar
else:
print barfoo

What's with the colons?

Instead of alienating people by spouting dogma and telling them their opinion is invalid and incorrect when critiquing Python's choice of how to handle statement block delcarations perhaps just once reflect on why so many people feel this way and just maybe ponder the possibility and wonder to yourself "Why can't there be block delimters or the use of whitespace? Wouldn't that make everyone happy and the world a better place to live?"

At least in Apple's favour, it may have taken them 20+ years to come around but at least they finally did. Perhaps there's some hope for Python too but maybe we'll have to wait until 2010.

The real problem with Python

[stmfreak]

Just like Java before it, Python is the latest "answer to all our problems" in software development. I'm betting that we'll see another replacement within three years.

But the real problem is that it seems the majority of developers will use any justification to use Python, no matter how thin. Once acheived, they begin their campaign of rewriting entire projects from whatever crappy, unmaintainable language we last used to whatever soon-to-be-crappy-and-unmaintainable new language they want to play with.

This ongoing effort to move from old language to new seems to be driven by little else than a developer's desire to work with cool new stuff. It robs our businesses of tremendous productivity and makes it that much harder to succeed. I've seen bugs put off for years because they were in the old-language code and the developers didn't want to touch it until the major rewrite scheduled real-soon-now. I've seen perfectly good code bases thrown away with no justification given or some flimsy speculation that new language will be better/faster/more.

It is this campaign to use new languages that robs businesses of huge amounts of productivity. Not merely the effort to rewrite stable code with new code in new languages, but the effort to test it, the effort to find and fix bugs. The effort to achieve the previous code's stability with multiple cycles going from 0.0 to 3.0+ over the course of years.

So if you're looking at Python or some new language as an interesting way to do your type of software development work, please consider how much further your business could advance if you just train your current development staff and new hires in whatever language you are already using.