Python Is On the Rise, While PHP Falls (dice.com)

Nerval's Lobster writes: While this month's lists of the top programming languages uniformly put Java in the top spot, that's not the only detail of interest to developers. Which language has gained the most users over the past five years? And which are tottering on the edge of obsolescence? According to PYPL, which pulls its raw data for analysis from Google Trends, Python has grown the most over the past five years—up 5 percent since roughly 2010. Over the same period, PHP also declined by 5 percent. Since PYPL looks at how often language tutorials are searched on Google, its data is a good indicator of how many developers are (or aren't) learning a language, presumably because they see it as valuable to their careers. Just because PYPL shows PHP losing market-share over the long term doesn't mean that language is in danger of imminent collapse; over the past year or so, the PHP community has concentrated on making the language more pleasant to use, whether by improving features such as package management, or boosting overall performance. Plus, PHP is still used on hundreds of millions of websites, according to data from Netcraft. Indeed, if there's any language on these analysts' lists that risks doom, it's Objective-C, the primary language used for programming iOS and Mac OS X apps, and its growing obsolescence is by design.

Comments

Go away Dice

[Anonymous Coward]

We won't want this Dice shit here.

Is there really no one at all willing to buy Slashdot?

PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[JoeyRox]

Which seems highly questionable. Seems to me the methodology of using google search metrics for language popularity works to gauge popularity of a language with enthusiasts but not of actual commercial projects.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[iggymanz]

this is Dice trying to churn their candidate pot, nothing more.

Slashdot really circling the drain quickly now

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Tablizer]

Indeed. Lisp variants often rank high in Google searches, but are generally skipped for production applications.

"Hobby" languages can be fun to write in and talk about because you can play with powerful abstractions, but such is not always readable by average developers in the field, limiting their industry selection.
   

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally! Perl should be number one - but no self-respecting Perl developer would search Google for help. They would either know everything, search CPAN, or look at their local copy of the documentation ;)

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Austerity Empowers]

Even if it is accurate, it is irrelevant. It in theory would just show what has the most volume, but for the purposes of someone using Dice unhelpful. Why learn C if you're looking for a web job? Why learn javascript if you are doing device drivers?

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

Good because PHP sucks hairy ass holes after first shaving them, eating the shit-encrusted ass hairs, and tongue-cleaning all the little shit particles deep up inside the anus and rectum while begging for more.

Seriously how can any of you assholes use such a profoundly fucked up and poorly designed language and call yourselves "programmers"? WTF is wrong with you dicks? Even APK knows better than to do that and he's a total douche!

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Art3x]

this is Dice trying to churn their candidate pot, nothing more.

Yes, there isn't much of a story here. Over five years Python has risen five percent while PHP has slid five percent.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[jeffb (2.718)]

Because Google is so terribly helpful when you're searching for the elements of ($l=join("",))=~s/.*\n/index($`,$&)>=$[||print$&/ge;.

I'm sure APL makes an even poorer showing in Google search statistics.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think Dice has any tangible input into Slashdot you're sadly mistaken. I'm an employee of another subsidiary of Dice and there's pretty much zero crosstalk. We're all pretty much separate companies with no idea what anyone else is doing. Dice is headless. Dice is an ok place to work but Dice is not just about the Dice website nor is it that desperate to draw in people.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think Dice has any tangible input into Slashdot you're sadly mistaken. I'm an employee of another subsidiary of Dice and there's pretty much zero crosstalk. We're all pretty much separate companies with no idea what anyone else is doing. Dice is headless. Dice is an ok place to work but Dice is not just about the Dice website nor is it that desperate to draw in people.

... or you're such a worthless entry-level employee douchebag that they don't tell you such things. Provide your location, department, and job title or eat shit and admit you're not credible. Those are your realistic choices. You tell the truth? You want to be believed? Great! Give us credientials. Give us a reason to believe a word you say. Put up, or shut up.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

Good because PHP sucks hairy ass holes after first shaving them, eating the shit-encrusted ass hairs, and tongue-cleaning all the little shit particles deep up inside the anus and rectum while begging for more.

Seriously how can any of you assholes use such a profoundly fucked up and poorly designed language and call yourselves "programmers"? WTF is wrong with you dicks? Even APK knows better than to do that and he's a total douche!

This all sounds like personal fantasy. So come on, tell us how much you like to tongue a dirty butthole some more.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Zontar The Mindless]

You forgot to ask whether he'd like fries with that.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was a Windows C then C++ then C# developer, I used Google all the time to solve platform issues and find API's that worked with each other. Now I am back to embedded C, and I never ever look for anything on Google. It's C. I look in K&R's ANSI C book when I have questions. All the API's and libraries are use are custom in house. All my docs are in house, it's an embedded C platform. There is a realtime OS but we don't hardly use it for much more than scheduling, all the code is writing to registers, etc. So that's why the search means nothing. I work with legions of C programmers, and we do not use Google to get it done. (thank god)

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[mwvdlee]

They used the term "tutorial", which will by definition give higher scores to languages that were invented while the internet existed.
Many active C developers will have learned their skill from tutorials in books.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

PHP has its issues, for sure.

You appear to have lots more issues, yourself.

Fully agreed that APK is a total douche, regardless.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

It's C. I look in K&R's ANSI C book when I have questions.

I suspect you don't since that syntax has been deprecated for a quarter of a century now.
If your compiler doesn't even support C89 then you are using an old compiler that generates horribly inefficient output.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an employee of another subsidiary of Dice and there's pretty much zero crosstalk. We're all pretty much separate companies with no idea what anyone else is doing. Dice is headless.

If all that is true, why did slashdot have to be dragged to report the adware/malware issue with sourceforge downloads?

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[fisted]

ANSI C is C89. Get a clue.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[kuzb]

....except you've pretty much just shown us why Perl isn't gaining any popularity - stuff exactly like that gets written in it a lot, and most programmers would prefer not to have their code look like someone threw up on the screen.

Re: PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[arielCo]

I only had trouble with the $-somethings, but here you go, in order of appearance:

http://perldoc.perl.org/functi...
http://perldoc.perl.org/perlop...
http://perldoc.perl.org/perlva...

You're not supposed to understand that intermediate-level mess just by looking before having learned a bit of Perl, anyway. Like regular expressions, Perl code was never designed to be self-explanatory.

Re: PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[arielCo]

I use Perl everyday, and when I was learning I searched for what I recognized in the snippet. So 'perl join', 'perl special variables' and 'perl substitute operator' would've been my queries, because the first things you learn in Perl are to identify basic syntax and to match/substitute text.

Perl code was never meant to be self-explanatory, not any more than regular expressions. You learn a bit of Perl *before* reading Perl code.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[DrXym]

You've made an effective and demonstrative argument why not to use a Perl.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll make you a deal. Post with your email address, any email address you can receive, and I'll write you a personal note from my corporate email address.

Re: PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are programmers so helpless these days. Is PERL is so difficult to learn that you would run away because its hard read. Kids these days..that code looks messy it must be a bad language.

Re: PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

Perl sucks. Python now for the win. Tired of reading my old Perl, other peoples old Perl, asking other people about their old Perl, and no-one knowing what the hell it is supposed to be doing.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

Perl does not enforce hard to read coding. Just because one can write crappy code in Perl, does not mean Perl is crappy. It's the programmer that's writing the crappy code.

If there is anything to complain about Perl, it's the object oriented side of it. It's weird. The crazy thing about Perl is that the extreme flexibility of the language and modules has allowed people to give Perl new OO syntax that's not in the base language. Which may or may not be a good thing, I'll leave for a heated debate by others.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

You've made an effective and demonstrative argument why not to use a Perl.

No, no he hasn't. That snippet doesn't do anything.

Re: PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

When I see Perl, I'm reminded of the Adeptus Mechanicus from Warhammer 40K. No one really understands the machine language but if you combine incantations in the correct order, it might just work.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute: JavaScript -> Node.js -> io.js -> io.sys -> device drivers. OH GOD, I've just uncovered their nefarious plan. We must stop this, people!

Re: PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

Perl sucks. Python now for the win. Tired of reading my old Perl, other peoples old Perl, asking other people about their old Perl, and no-one knowing what the hell it is supposed to be doing.

Yes, use a crippled language instead. Simpler language for simpler minds. Or you could just write in baby Perl, Larry says it's okay.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing he meant C99?

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

> I suspect you don't since that syntax has been deprecated for a quarter of a century now.

Nothing in the language itself has been deprecated since the ANSI standardization.

Re: PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[arielCo]

Heh. Some experimentation may be required, but the same happens with regexes and C/C++ declarations and casts.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[fisted]

Are you also guessing that he thinks a quarter of a century are 15 years?

Re: PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[KGIII]

Maybe if you'd written better Perl then you'd be less tired of reading it? I've shared my Perl story, so I'll spare you AND I'll spare you the snarky response. The question was, indeed, a question. It is even a legitimate question.

See, is the problem Perl or is the problem that you're now older, wiser, and able to look back on your old code and realize how much better the code could have been? What if, say, your old code were written in Python and now you were using C or Java? Would you not, probably, look back at your old work in disgust? Would you not think of how much better it could have been?

I know that I've looked back at old work and realized exactly how bad I was and how much I've improved. I imaging that, at the time, I blamed the tools and felt better about my newer tools - it's easier than it is to blame myself. Really, though, it is just that I had improved. Perl can be readable and understood by someone familiar with the language - if I can do it, then I know you can.

Re: PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[kuzb]

I already understand and can read perl and regex quite well. That doesn't stop people from writing code that honestly looks like dogshit.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still here if you're game.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[DrXym]

Perl does not enforce anything from a structural standpoint. That's the problem - it is a terse language and without structure or enforcement it leads to opaque and unstructured code. Code which can be impossible to maintain. That's why it occupies a niche and that's why it is unlikely to go any further than that.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[Anonymous Coward]

Perl does not enforce hard to read coding. Just because one can write crappy code in Perl, does not mean Perl is crappy. It's the programmer that's writing the crappy code.

I don't think it's possible to use the full power of Perl without it being hard to read, simply because regexps are hard to read. Perl itself is really no harder to read than C. I find that most programmers who complain about Perl looking like "line noise" have never gone through the trials of learning to read and write regular expressions.

Re:PYPL shows C language share @ only 7.5%

[iggymanz]

well aren't you a good little brown-star tongue-punch for your corporate overlords. Are you under your boss's right now, you'll find his nutsac will need particular attention today

Python impresses

[Anonymous Coward]

PHP depresses.

Netcraft confirms...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is official; Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save *BSD from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

Fact: *BSD is dying

Re:Netcraft confirms...

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to s/BSD/PHP/g, loser.

False metric

[techno-vampire]

Counting the number of times tutorials are accessed tells you how many people are learning (or considering learning) a language, not how many are using it now. All this can do is tell you if people expect to need it in the future, because for the most part, if you're currently programming in a particular language, you shouldn't need to be going over tutorials.

Re:False metric

[h33t l4x0r]

Right, so in other words we're comparing the number of people who *don't* know Python to the number of people who *don't* know PHP.

I already know PHP, so if I search for a Python tutorial that's somehow a win for Python?

Re:False metric

[CQDX]

More to the point above about C at on 7.5%, most software engineers already know C and those that don't aren't going to search the web for a tutorial. There are plenty of well written books on the language that are far beyond anything you would find in an online tutorial. I would assume that also applies for other older language like C++ and Perl.

Re: False metric

[Anonymous Coward]

That is 100% accurate. Just like another commenter said about Perl:

no self-respecting Perl developer would search Google for help. They would either know everything, search CPAN, or look at their local copy of the documentation

Which could be said of any language. The entire criteria they use for the basis of their result is immeasurable without knowing the person who performed the search.

Re: False metric

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been programming for 20+ years. I *still* look things up all the time. Why? Because I have not memorized the documentation on thousands of API calls or that one bit o language one of my fellow co-workers found and I now have to decipher again.

I learned long ago. Even though I think I may know a function it is best to look up the docs and at least re-read them. For example take the well used C standard printf. I can think of the top of my head at least 5 different quirks with that little bad boy depending on which platform you are on. I program in no less than 3 different ones. So I look it up all the time.

Then as you jump around thru different languages you need to remind yourself on the syntax for *this* one. Is it AND or and or And or && or & in this language. Some langs let you do them all some only one or a subset and they have different meanings.

So even if you are fairly proficient sometimes the languages get muddled together. Take 2 seconds look it up and be done with it.

Assumptions are the cause of more fuckups than I can count. Look it up. Once you have read it a few hundred times I may allow you to assume a few things.

Re: False metric

[Anonymous Coward]

Assumptions are the cause of more fuckups than I can count. Look it up. Once you have read it a few hundred times I may allow you to assume a few things.

How gracious of you!

I may decide to allow you to lick the sweat off a dead man's balls, a day after he reaches room temperature, if he hasn't bathed in a week or two prior to his death, and if I happen to be feeling generous.

You're welcome!

Re: False metric

[darkain]

It could also be an indication of how hard it is to find vital information on a particular language. Search for anything in the Win32 API, and the MSDN will be the top result pretty much every time. Search for anything in the PHP language and php.net will be the top result pretty much every time. Other languages are not even remotely as lucky. I personally find that finding even basics of other languages takes a few Google searches and several posts in various StackOverflow boards to get decent answers.

Re: False metric

[darkain]

#1 reason to look things up: are the function arguments in (needle, haystack) or (haystack, needle) order!

Re: False metric

[Anonymous Coward]

Statements about self respecting Perl programmers are vacuously true. (And there's more than one way to say that.)

Re:False metric

[ShanghaiBill]

All this can do is tell you if people expect to need it in the future

It doesn't even tell you that. I use Python, but I have never looked at a Python tutorial. The language is simple and the syntax is obvious. But when I was learning Objective-C, I had to go thru 3 tutorials just to understand memory management.

Re: False metric

[Anonymous Coward]

It could also be an indication of how hard it is to find vital information on a particular language. Search for anything in the Win32 API, and the MSDN will be the top result pretty much every time. Search for anything in the PHP language and php.net will be the top result pretty much every time. Other languages are not even remotely as lucky. I personally find that finding even basics of other languages takes a few Google searches and several posts in various StackOverflow boards to get decent answers.

Well that's how it is when you're a stupid-ass dumb fuckin' idiot. Gots to bug people with a clue hoping they will waste their time doing all of the RTFM for you. You're a nasty syphillis-infected cunt sore on the genitals of programming.

Re:False metric

[techno-vampire]

No, it only says that you want or need to learn something about PHP. It suggests that you might be planning on using it in the future, but you also might learn enough to find out that it's not what you need.

Re:False metric

[hankwang]

"I use Python, but I have never looked at a Python tutorial. The language is simple and the syntax is obvious."

That's how I started as well, but it resulted in horrible C-like constructs, like literal translations of

for (i=m; i<n; ++i) {}

with while and if. And it took a while to figure out how the lack of pointers and the murable/immutable object distinction work in practice.

Re:False metric

[Anonymous Coward]

Counting the number of times tutorials are accessed tells you how many people are learning (or considering learning) a language, not how many are using it now. All this can do is tell you if people expect to need it in the future, because for the most part, if you're currently programming in a particular language, you shouldn't need to be going over tutorials.

It also tells you which language people are having a harder time learning because the language is non-intuitive and a whole bunch of other things like which language suffers from reverse compatibility issues.

Re: False metric

[jeremyp]

I know C really well so I very rarely look anything up online on it. If I do need to remind myself of an API (and printf is a good example, i can never remember the format specifiers), I'll probably use the man pages installed on my computer rather than going to the Web. The same for any language I use regularly, even Java. I'l download the API documentation onto my laptop so I can still use it when offline.

However, I recently had to write some enhancements for a web site written in classic ASP and, pretty much literally the code for every line I wrote had to be Googled. Going off my web searches, you would assume I only use classic ASP and never anything else.

Re: False metric

[CastrTroy]

There are other languages with good documentation. Java is a good example that you didn't mention. You mentioned the Win32 API and MSDN, but didn't mention .Net or any of the languages that use it such as C# or VB.Net.

Re: False metric

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Look boy, either you're a programmer or a farmer. Pick one already!

Re: False metric

[Anonymous Coward]

"Self respecting Perl programmer" an oxymoron and a great onion article topic!

Re: False metric

[darkain]

Why not both!? Writing programs to farm gold in WoW all day!!

Re:False metric

[Anonymous Coward]

which is why he is unemployed and on slashdot at all hours of the day and night

Swift

[Noah Haders]

What about Swift? Considering it's only 2 years old, surely it's grown by the most, percentage-wise. I suspect a company called PYPL has an interest in promoting Python...

Re:Swift

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

And since more and more people are interested in making applications for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV, the percentage of Swift programmers should rise faster than the decline of Objective-C programmers.

Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

Python? Seriously? The language where I can't cut and paste anything without it seriously being broken because... whitespace matters?!

Python is as dumbass does.

Re:Har har har?

[Shompol]

Aliluâ! Panacea against copy-paste programmers is finally here!

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

Derp!

Dey took our berces!

Derp!

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very original - let's go through the Python whitespace argument for ten-millionth time...

Here's the short version: those who hate it, hate it. Those who love it, love it. After much bickering, neither side will succeed in convincing the other.

Re:Har har har?

[alicetran1415]

http://satthepmiennam.com/?s=2...

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahaha. Are you copying and pasting your own code a lot? Maybe look into writing modular code. Are you copying and pasting from a tutorial? Then find a tiny violin. As was said above - you know you're a good programmer when you can pick the right tool for the job and use it competently. If you struggle with indentation you probably have trouble with more than just a single language.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you even want to copy/cut and paste code? Do you not know how to write reusable code and classes? What are you, a PERL dweeb?

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dislike languages where whitespace matters as well, but mostly just for very rare edge cases where I want to break the rules a bit. Aside from that, if you can't copy-paste, select the text and tab it over to where it needs to be, you have bigger problems. And no code should ever be left with horrible formatting as a matter of course. If I get a file in any other language where whitespace "doesn't matter", the first thing I do is correct the broken formatting, unless it's going to screw up someone else's workflow.

Re:Har har har?

[NotInHere]

Sometimes you want to test something, then you might need to add an if or so. With braces, you just add it, and you can immediately execute it. With python, you have to get indentation right. And you never know where a block ends, unless you look at the indentation level.

And to GP: the next time you have to write something in python for whatever reason (unfortunately python is almost unavoidable), try kate block mode.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very original - let's go through the Python whitespace argument for ten-millionth time...

Here's the short version: those who hate it, hate it. Those who love it, love it. After much bickering, neither side will succeed in convincing the other.

Yep. And that same description applies fairly universally to all lanugages; just swap out 'whitespace' for whatever causes arguments about your favourite language. They all have *something* that causes arguments.

And you know what... that's kinda the whole reason there are so many languages. There's a niche for them all, and we've all just got to grow up and stop being petty about languages we don't like for whatever reason.

Myself, I don't really like Python's whitespace thing. But that's just me; I know others do like it and I'm fine with that.

It really doesn't matter what language you're using as long as you can produce results with it.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no trouble at all cutting and pasting Python code and maintaining whitespace/indentation. Perhaps you're using tools that aren't good at it.

I'm not asking you to like Python, I couldn't care less, but it seems to me that people who think a data transfer mechanism that systematically damages the data being transferred is a reason to blame the data instead of the transfer mechanism must have very poor problem solving skills.

Re:Har har har?

[CastrTroy]

And sometimes you actually just want to move some inline code out to a new function to fix the code that wasn't done well in the first place. If the language has problems that stops you from refactoring your code in order to improve the code base, then there are serious problems with the language.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

In C you never know where a block ends, unless you look at the braces!
No, seriously, one could hide braces within a line and you would never know where the block ends.
At least in python, you can't put the "end of block" token in misleading places.

Use a decent editor and the problem goes away

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess Google searches for how to speak Vietnamese are also on the rise.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Python's stupid for making people write readable code then I'm glad for it.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

In C you never know where a block ends, unless you look at the braces!

Or use vi(m?), and bang on the "%" key.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

I laughed out loud researching some stupid Python internals thing when I saw someone praising how clean Python's internals were -- compared to Perl's. Made me laugh because I've been in the Lua internals. You could eat off those.

Re:Har har har?

[Just Some Guy]

You know, as much as I hear that whine, in 16 years of writing Python I've literally never once been bitten by it. Yes, you hate having to indent your code the way you would naturally have indented it anyway, left to your own devices. Sure, writing at-a-glance understandable clauses is torture. Oh yeah, I too hate formatting my stuff the way my coworkers / teachers / project maintainers / colleagues expect to find it. But as much as I love writing the horrible, unformatted mess that you also enjoy, I just can't make this hypothetical copy-and-paste problem manifest itself in reality. Curse you, Python!

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

you hate having to indent your code the way you would naturally have indented it anyway,

Yes, but you save time by not indenting, quickly trying it out, and if you want to make it permanent, you can always pipe it out to a pretty-printer.

With python, if it's not indented correctly, it's broken. I don't want to deal with a language so fragile that I can break a program by deleting a couple of spaces or tabs.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like I was right; see below.

Re:Har har har?

[Marginal Coward]

I too hate formatting my stuff the way my coworkers / teachers / project maintainers / colleagues expect to find it.

Are you suggesting that There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it? Geeze, I'm not sure my coworkers / teachers / project maintainers / colleagues can accept that...

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you copying and pasting your own code a lot? Maybe look into writing modular code.

The GP said "cut and paste", not "copy and paste". Cutting and pasting is what you do to make your code more modular, ie moving a chunk of code out to a new function, etc.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

we don't speak gook spam

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you not know how to write reusable code and classes? What are you, a PERL dweeb?

... did you seriously just say that Perl programmers don't know how to write reusable code? Just save yourself the pain and give up on life now.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Python's stupid for making people write readable code then I'm glad for it.

No, the people that like Python are stupid.

Re:Har har har?

[Just Some Guy]

Yes, but you save time by not indenting

I'm asking this seriously: what text editor do you use that you can easily not indent? I use Emacs (and Vim and Sublime Text and Atom) and automatically get thr correct indentation just by writing code like I normally would. If I type if foo: and hit enter, the cursor will be placed correctly for the next thing I type. This isn't Python-specific, either. I get the same behavior when writing C, Go, JS, shell scripts, and so on.

I love dealing with a language that's explicit about what I mean. Consider how incredibly dangerous it is to write code that's not actually indented the way it's meant to be executed. Lots of eyes looked at that C code and didn't notice that the formatting was inconsistent with its parsing. That would not have been a problem in a language that uses indent to describe intent.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm asking this seriously: what text editor do you use that you can easily not indent?

I use vim. I don't use autoindent. It's a "feature" you can turn off, fairly easily.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider how incredibly dangerous it is to write code that's not actually indented the way it's meant to be executed. Lots of eyes looked at that C code and didn't notice that the formatting was inconsistent with its parsing. That would not have been a problem in a language that uses indent to describe intent.

Braces are also pretty explicit about how you want it executed.

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

Python? Seriously? The language where I can't cut and paste anything without it seriously being broken because... whitespace matters?!

Python is as dumbass does.

In my experience only folks who don't actually use python have this complaint.

Once you use Python (extensively) whitespace becomes a feature, not a bug. Really. (Helps with conciseness, style consistency, etc)

Re:Har har har?

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad I saw this. I've considered learning Python but I cut/paste the shit out of code.

Python on the Rise

[PopeRatzo]

I got your Python, right here.

Wait, searches for language tutorials?

[Ecuador]

Isn't it kind of a strange metric? It measures people who don't really know the language but want to learn it. But did they learn it in the end? Did they end up using it? Was it actual programmers trying to get into a new language / refreshing one for a new project, or was it complete beginners who heard "python is cool" or something like that and search for a tutorial thinking they will be great programmers?
And not all languages have an equal basis in this metric. For example who would search google for a perl tutorial? I mean it doesn't even support regex for christ sake! Also it is well known that Perl either comes as an Epiphany, or you are taught by Monks, you don't read a tutorial...

Need more mature languages

[iamacat]

Python provides no true concurrency due to global interpreter lock. Java is not suitable for realtime due to unpredictable GC, while C/C++ is not suitable for anything which should never crash or return random results due to memory corruption. None of mainstream languages make automatic use of multiple cores and GPU - explicit provisions must be made by programmer to parallelize part of the program, often with error prone semantics and a separate language like OpenCL.

Yes, those are hard problems, but it's also 2015 and we can come up with powerful compilers and JIT virtual machines. Going back to less concurrency than plain old shell scripts where '&' starts a true separate process is not an answer.

Re:Need more mature languages

[Euler]

Assembly code, man. All the rest are just obscuring what you really want the processor to do anyway. At least with asm, you can fix any of these problems given enough effort.

Re:Need more mature languages

[Wrath0fb0b]

Python provides no true concurrency due to global interpreter lock. Java is not suitable for realtime due to unpredictable GC, while C/C++ is not suitable for anything which should never crash or return random results due to memory corruption.

Python has multiprocessing for 'true concurrency' if you need it
Java is not actually used for anything real-time
C/C++ can be written safely if you are willing to be careful and unit-test (also managed memory with C++11/14 constructs helps the drudgery) with tools like ASAN and Valgrind.

Yes, those are hard problems, but it's also 2015 and we can come up with powerful compilers and JIT virtual machines. Going back to less concurrency than plain old shell scripts where '&' starts a true separate process is not an answer.

Good thing no one proposed that.

Re:Need more mature languages

[unimacs]

Go is awesome for concurrency. Maybe not so great for realtime but I think that's generally true of languages with GC. One language doesn't need to be used for everything.

Re:Need more mature languages

[Anonymous Coward]

Assembly code, man. All the rest are just obscuring what you really want the processor to do anyway. At least with asm, you can fix any of these problems given enough effort.

Amen.

Re:Need more mature languages

[Anonymous Coward]

C not good for anything that shouldn't crash? Have you heard of Lunix?

Re:Need more mature languages

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Interesting read by Andrei Alexandrescu, D Language Architect, on: D, Go, Rust, and C, C++:
https://www.quora.com/Which-la...

Re:Need more mature languages

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Erlang, or even better Elixir. Those languages have been built with parallelization in mind

Re:Need more mature languages

[lolop]

When you just learn what is a variable, a loop, a function, an expression, an assignment, an object, a module⦠(ie. when you are a beginner), the (real) problems you list are not your problems.
As long as you just use programming for simple tasks automation, basic usage, they are still not your problems.

When you want to become a professional developer, they generally appear, but I hope you are in position to learn other languages adapted to your requirements.

Re:Need more mature languages

[fendragon]

Java is not suitable for realtime due to unpredictable GC

Not disputing that, but realtime is a problem for *any* language that has automatic garbage collection.

Re:Need more mature languages

[jandersen]

Python provides no ... Java is not ... C/C++ is not ...

Programming languages are tools, and all good tools tend to be suited for just a few tasks. If you are going to hang picture on a wall, you'll probably use a hammer and a nail (well, depending on the waill, of course), because that is the simple and efficient way of doing the job. I doubt anybody would ever seriously contemplate making a supertool, that could hammer nails, drill holes, mix cement, lift bricks up to third floor, place roofing tiles etc etc etc, as well as cook your dinner, do the accounting and perform brain surgery.

The sensible thing is to use the simplest tool that will do a given job easily, and then change to another tool for another kind of job. Why would you expect it to be different for computer programming? There is no universal super languange that can do everything you desire, because 1) your desires are yours, and may not align with those of others, 2) it isn't actually worth creating a tool like that, because the existing ones do the job well enough, and 3) the technology and the needs change too fast anyway, so a superlanguage would dated before the specs were finished.

Re:Need more mature languages

[TeknoHog]

None of mainstream languages make automatic use of multiple cores and GPU - explicit provisions must be made by programmer to parallelize part of the program, often with error prone semantics and a separate language like OpenCL.

Automatic parallelization for CPUs has been around for a good while (e.g. Fortran 90), so the parallelization per se should not be a huge issue. You need sensible semantics for these concepts, such as vector types, so the compiler can assume things about parallelism.

Re:Need more mature languages

[BitZtream]

Lets see ...

Python provides no true concurrency due to global interpreter lock.

The interpreter you use has that flaw perhaps. Fortunately there are multiple interpreters, ask CCP games about that lock.

Java is not suitable for realtime due to unpredictable GC

Yet I work for a company and sit right next to the team that does real time Java without hitting the GC at all.

C/C++ is not suitable for anything which should never crash or return random results due to memory corruption

Yet it is what any industry uses that requires 100% reliability like aviation and medical use.

None of mainstream languages make automatic use of multiple cores and GPU - explicit provisions must be made by programmer to parallelize part of the program

This is just simply wrong for so many reasons. Most languages have helpers and utilities to explicitly thread but its really the runtime or compilers that you want changed to automatically do all the work for you. Which can be done and has been done in a various demonstrable examples. Turns out that a lot of times, its not good to implicitly do things, which you'd know if you understood the comment you made about Java not being real time, but I suspect you're just respewing things you've heard someone else say but you actually have zero understanding of.

You want a language that magically reads your mind and always does the right thing. The problem is, if you read your post, you'll see that YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO and thats actually the problem, not the languages or the computer.

Everything you've posted demonstrates a flaw in you and your understanding of the language or abilities. Not the tool. But hey, who am I to judge, you go right on ahead blaming the tool for your lack of ability, I'm sure you'll get promoted.

Re:Need more mature languages

[Anonymous Coward]

The interpreter you use has that flaw perhaps. Fortunately there are multiple interpreters, ask CCP games about that lock.

CCP games use an interpreter that has that lock, but they get around it using Sentry. That's not the same as not having that lock, and OP is correct about Python.

Yet I work for a company and sit right next to the team that does real time Java without hitting the GC at all.

Yes, and that's hard to do. And because it's hard to do you guys obviously aren't idiots. And because you're not idiots, you obviously didn't choose Java for this real-time stuff. Java chose you, and you had to make it work. So tell us why you HAVE TO use Java for this, and stop pretending that Java is a great choice for realtime stuff when we both know it isn't.

This is just simply wrong for so many reasons

It's not wrong. There is no mainstream language which makes automatic use of multiple cores and GPU.

Everything you've posted demonstrates a flaw in you and your understanding of the language or abilities

Actually he posted some fairly accurate and insightful things, and you're just quibbling. Playing alpha geek at the end of your post is fairly disreputable anyway, but ironically inappropriate since your own post is full of errors & omissions.

Re:Need more mature languages

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you SIT NEXT TO the guys that do this stuff? You must know ALL about it then.

And yeah, everyone uses C++ for avionics and medical use I mean seriously do you know ANYTHING about this subject at all?

Why is it always the clueless fucktards that end their post with "you don't know what you're talking about"?

"I suspect you're just respewing things you've heard someone else say but you actually have zero understanding of." ... Hilarious! You actually accuse the poster of doing what you're doing right now.

Re:Need more mature languages

[Anonymous Coward]

With RISC (including x86_64), the effort it takes to manually write nontrivial functions in asm is ridiculous.

Re:Need more mature languages

[yes-but-no]

Yes, most CPUs today are multi-core and we need language features which can automatically do parallelism. The best is when it happens without explicit programmer directive. Say when C was invented, complex mathematical expressions can be reordered/re-evaluated to best use the underlying hardware [register sets, ALUs]; the language gives guarantees using sequence-points, only when the dust settles down and the programmer can use the value.

Similarly in languages like python, operations on collections [like lists, iterators] can happen in parallel. e.g. if I call find-max(list_foo), the library can fire up as many threads into various cores at runtime to utilize the h/w better. That is a kind of micro parallelism which happens at runtime.

Of course if the problem is amenable to massive parallelism at top-level (ie at design/algorithm stage), the programmer can use explicit multi-threading programming paradigms.

Re:Need more mature languages

[Anonymous Coward]

That and professional programmers will hopefully know more about the language. Using Python as an example, you can get true concurrency by careful use of the threading module, by use of the multiprocessing module, or using an interpreter designed for concurrency.

Re:Need more mature languages

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA: "Overall it could be said that D has the downsides of GC but doesn't enjoy its benefits."

Then why include GC, FFS??

Re:Need more mature languages

[paavo512]

C/C++ is not suitable for anything which should never crash or return random results due to memory corruption.

Yes, it's 2015 and so it would be appropriate to realize that C and C++ are two totally different languages (where one of those is just capable to seamlessly compile most of the code written for the other).

Re:Need more mature languages

[Anonymous Coward]

C/C++ is not suitable for anything which should never crash or return random results due to memory corruption.

Yes, it's 2015 and so it would be appropriate to realize that C and C++ are two totally different languages (where one of those is just capable to seamlessly compile most of the code written for the other).

And even then, there's a decent chunk of C99 and onwards that isn't supported in C++. I can think of variable-length arrays, designated initializers and the 'restrict' keyword off the top of my head. This has been true for over a decade now.

Re:Need more mature languages

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. But that's written in 6502 assembly, not C.

Again with the Klingons

[Anonymous Coward]

If religious wars are worth the time, then have at it.

I'm tired of this shit.

* ducks head *

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all those googling to figure out how to fix their white-space messes

Understand the Allure

[Thunderf00t]

I know it's a matter of taste, but I understand why Python, aside from simply being popular, is used so often. Having spent time using several languages, I can say that brevity bordering on the obscure (often mistaken for elegance) is not something to encourage. Don't get me wrong, it's great if you can reduce the steps used to implement an algorithm (especially if you get big-O benefits as well), but simply reducing line counts isn't anything to brag about. I mean, who cares if you implemented something in a single line of Perl that took 5 lines of Python for me? Eighteen months later, when the code gets dug up for whatever reason, I know which will be far easier to follow and correct if needed.

That, to me, is the real strength of Python: it enforces readability without requiring too many extra characters (Tcl being representative of the other extreme). If using an interpreted language isn't an issue, it almost always seems like the way to go for my tastes.

Re:Understand the Allure

[whh3]

I especially agree with your point in today's world where compilers are able to do a decent job optimizing. When that brevity does not buy you anything more than a few saved keystrokes, I tend to focus on writing the most readable yet not overly verbose code. There are ways to do that in PERL just as there are in Python. Sometimes with languages with more exotic features and "more than one way to do everything" it is tempting to be as clever as possible.

Then I remember: "clever is not a compliment" and I want to be able to, you know, understand my code when I return to it 18 mos later (just like OP said).

Will

Re:Understand the Allure

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with Python in my opinion is the mixture of procedural and object-oriented features. Maybe I was spoiled by Smalltalk's clean syntax and 100% object-orientation. I have even seen procedural function names disguised as object-oriented by the naming convention. Otherwise Python is a reasonably easy programming language for beginners to learn.

Re:Understand the Allure

[gfxguy]

it enforces readability without requiring too many extra characters

I agree... over the past five years or so I've migrated to python, both in web development and a lot of scrips I wrote for use in house for special case "things." It's a great combination of brief (as little as 1/10 or less the size of equivalent Java) and yet structured and readable.

Re:Understand the Allure

[loosescrews]

You might like Go. It has most of that line-count saving stuff removed. It is really quite polarizing.

Re: Understand the Allure

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly why Python is a turnoff for me. Don't force me to adopt your coding style.

Re:Understand the Allure

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about brevity.

I've worked with a Perl codebase which had many average cooks. One major problem was pairing the open statement with the close statement. Quite often the close statement would go MIA.

with open('filename', 'rw') as fh:
        pass

solves that issue, making the code more robust.

Re: Understand the Allure

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, please, please put that at the top of your resume. Then we can all avoid wasting time reading the rest before we throw it in the trash.

Re:Understand the Allure

[Anonymous Coward]

You can write just as clear, easy to read code in Perl as any other language. It allows you to do extreme shorthand, but doesn't mean you have to do it.

I work with Perl and use a clear coding style.

Re:Understand the Allure

[Anonymous Coward]

I've programmed in C/C++/C#/Java/x86_ASM/Scheme/SNOBOL4/Smalltalk/and a few others I can't remember....and I simply adore Python.
It is every I need and nothing I don't and it makes me and everyone else write readable code.

Re:Understand the Allure

[Anonymous Coward]

That, to me, is the real strength of Python: it enforces readability

You've obviously never seen Portage.

Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

No real programmer uses these stupid script kiddie languages.

Re:Spare Us

[invictusvoyd]

A real programmer does not care about languages. A real programmer does not attempt to write a kernel in perl. A real programmer does not attempt to write a glue script in C . A real programmer cares more about the optimum solution to the problem than which tools to use .

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

agree completely, as long as the solution involves Perl :-)

That is one underrated language...

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha. "A real programmer does not care about languages." "A real programmer would not use language x for task y." Perhaps you should think a bit before spouting contradictory inane platitudes.

Re:Spare Us

[TWX]

His statement is true if you consider it to mean that a real programmer does not care about any one language to the exclusion of others.

I was at a Cisco event recently that had a discussion on Application Centric Infrastructure, basically using a master controller to do all kinds of fancy on-demand things to switchports at the access layer depending on factors like authentication of the device or user account. The presenter basically said there are two ways to go about it, the first is to use the somewhat crappy GUI/Web interface, and the second is to write stuff in Python that the controller makes use of. As someone that uses a lot of Bash right now the Python approach is definitely more my style than relying on a web page.

Re:Spare Us

[mrsquid0]

> No real programmer uses these stupid script kiddie languages.

No real programmer makes silly statements like that.

Re:Spare Us

[Zontar The Mindless]

Busted. We're writers, not developers, so we wrote our XML processing toolchain with XSLT, Bash, Perl, Ruby, Python, and PHP. We only re-publish about 30,000 pages of documentation in about 20 different end-user formats every single day, so it's not like it's a *real* application or anything...

*eyeroll*

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

No one uses PERL for real application, get over it. It was a tool available to scratch an itch many years ago. Developers using it are not real devs, they're admins moving into a new field lacking all the discipline real programmers learnt through language study and actually being paid to cut code. If these PERL zealots cannot open their eyes to better suited languages, the farther away from real system design and coding they are, the better.

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

As a professional brogrammer, I disrespectfully disagree.

Re: Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right but you forgot one group using perl - developers stuck supporting shitty-ass perl code in legacy environments. Some large engineering companies are so fucking entrenched in perl it's pathetic.

Re:Spare Us

[gweihir]

Actually, they do. You do not qualify as "real programmer" though, big ego and small skills is not the qualification needed.

For example, Python is very nice as glue and configuration language for c-modules that do the heavy lifting. I have been using that successfully in some pretty advanced projects.

Re:Spare Us

[rxmd]

Replying to undo accidental "Offtopic" moderation.

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, a real programmer *does* care about languages, only does it wisely.

Re:Spare Us

[TheDarkMaster]

While I agree with you, I'm recently having to support a complete application written in PHP. And at every turn I'm getting more and more surprised about how PHP is a shitty language for the task.

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of bullshit you are writing.

You can write maintainable and well formated Perl programs if you want to. It all depends on the programmer. So crappy formatted programms are only a matter of a pebkac problem and not the problem of the programming language.

If you had some cluse then you would know that you can write object oriented code with Perl. You either use Perl's internal object orientation model and class out all modules in sub packages with a nice packaging convention: e.g. package My::Cool::Package;

You can also go more advanced and use Moose if you wish.

I also recommend reading "Modern Perl" by chromatic (google for it).

Re:Spare Us

[Antique Geekmeister]

> A real programmer does not care about languages.

A real programmer certainly _does_ care. The available modules, version dependencies, and API's can vary tremendously. Even simple features like "regexp" have subtly different syntax with different tools, string parsing and processing functions differ fundamentally in the handling of "end-of-line" characters, and even whether a "true" value is "0" or a positive number can differ profoundly and affect binary logic.

To say "a real programmer does not care" is similar to saying that a real musician does not care what instrument they play.

Re:Spare Us

[Assmasher]

I believe the poster meant to say "...does not care about languages subjectively." as in "tools in a toolbox - pick the right one for the job."

Of course, that statement always has to be bounded by the skillset of the engineers involved (e.g. picking C for a *nix systems application/daemon is a clear choice unless no one on your team knows C.)

Re:Spare Us

[BitZtream]

A real programmer does not care about languages. A real programmer does not attempt to write a kernel in perl. A real programmer does not attempt to write a glue script in C . A real programmer cares more about the optimum solution to the problem than which tools to use .

Your first sentence contradicts the rest of your statement where you very clearly show that a 'REAL' programmer most certainly does care about the language, which is why he isn't writing glue script in C or a kernel in Perl.

And 'REAL' programmers most certainly do avoid shitty languages, of which PHP is one as is Perl (sorry if you still think leaning toothpicks and a language where everyone writes the same one line operation in a different way is a good thing, but that just makes you stupid ;)

So you go ahead and pretend to be all high and mighty and 'a real programmer' ... and us old guys will laugh at you.

Re:Spare Us

[Assmasher]

Pffft... Luxury. We write code in a shoebox.

Re: Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you all have a serious twist in your fucking panties. Jesus, you sound like children.

Re:Spare Us

[gsslay]

Nice to see the "real programmers don't use [insert language here]" troll still has some life in it.

Must be pushing at least 40 by now, and still pulling in the responses.

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

"No one uses PERL for real application,"
You are right, you'd be an idiot to code something like booking.com or slashdot.com in perl...

oh wait.

Re:Spare Us

[smallfries]

You ain't Mel.

Re:Spare Us

[CastrTroy]

This is the problem with PHP. PHP used to stand for Personal Home Page. That's exactly the level of programming it was originally designed to do. Making simple pages for personal use, maintained by yourself.

Since then, it has grown, but many of the things that make it great for small personal home pages make it quite unweildly for larger projects.

Personally, I don't like PHP or Python. PHP is just terrible for reasons I won't get into here. The only thing that really bothers me about Python is that it uses white space to infer where code blocks begin and end. It's not that I think you shouldn't have properly indented code. The problem is that the blocks should be defined by something other than white space so that your tool can automatically put in the correct white space.

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't really use "white space", it just uses "levels of indentation". You can use a single space as the "tab width" and it becomes perfectly clear where each block begins and ends. The same style used to be somewhat more common in C as well, although I haven't seen it in a while (and C didn't require it, of course). Using spaces is not much stranger than using curly brackets, though, and as someone who has misplaced a curly brace more times than I care to recall I much prefer the simplicity of merely shifting blocks left or right to indicate scope. That is essentially the programmer's job, in the first place, not that of the editor/compiler.

Re: Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll have you know that I do not have "fucking panties." In fact, I take my panties off when I'm fucking.

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

You can always use Django to get the best of both worlds ;)

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.bluecieloecm.com/bluecielo-project-portal-kronodoc is real application done with PERL.

Re:Spare Us

[Faust6]

A 'real' programmer, in vast majority of cases, doesn't code in a dozen languages during work hours. We all specialize and as such are pigeonholed dealing with certain problems.

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wouldn't you just write it in PHP? [duck]

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

Real programmers use a magnetized needle and a steady hand.

Re: Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who likes Perl a lot, I agree.

Perl is great for quick-and-dirty scripts by systems admins like myself. It is my goto language when Bash just won't do it.

That's more than sufficient reason to keep it around. Just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use it for large applications.

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

No one uses PERL for real application...

You are so right. No one uses PERL for anything. PERL doesn't exist. It's "Perl" or "perl". Idiot.

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot was written in Perl?

That explains a lot.

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

def printme( str ):#{
      "This prints a passed string into this function"
      print str
      return
#}

You want your precious damn curly braces? Is that really so fucking goddamned hard?

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

A programmer cares only about the algorithm's they have learned or created on their own that can be implemented in any computer language.

Re:Spare Us

[jellomizer]

Actually they do.
These modern interpreted languages offer many key benefits over the compiled languages such as C/C++, <whatever>.NET, Java.
1. No compiled code: Sucks if you are trying to offer a closed source solution. But often in a business environment having your source as your running code, means decades after you leave you will still have the source available, even after they lost the original project. How many pros had came to a work environment where there was at least one legacy (Usually VB) application that all you have is an .EXE and unable to do maintenance on the code. So a minor tweak requires a full rebuild.

2. Platform independence. Sure Java is good too. But having code written that work well on various OS's and versions means you can keep this code longer than people decide to change the environment

3. Full language library. These languages were designed to get work done and quick coding. That means there they come with a rich library of common use tasks which are optimised for performance. While in theory you can get faster in C/C++ however when deadlines are looming, you may do a sub optimal get it done code, because a standard sub class isn't available.

Re:Spare Us

[flargleblarg]

A real programmer does not care about languages.

Disagree. Real programmers care a lot about what languages they use.

Re:Spare Us

[KGIII]

No, with butterflies...

Obligatory XKCD:
https://xkcd.com/378/

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

Perl can and is used in real world applications.

Perl is not staying put. It's it inconstant development and multiple web frameworks keeping up with the latest models in use today. And these frameworks are independent of mod_perl as well.

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

Real programmers write their own languages! Only newbs use someone else's language.

Re: Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

I put your panties on when I'm fucking.

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

> And at every turn I'm getting more and more surprised about how PHP is a shitty language for the task.

I'd rather work with just about any PHP framework/CMS than with the steaming pile of .NET dung that is Sitecore!

Re:Spare Us

[Anonymous Coward]

> No real programmer uses these stupid script kiddie languages.

Okay, then by all means point us to something you've built. Tell us what language you used and what makes it great.

Bonus points if anyone has ever heard of or used your software/site.

Whoopdee fucking doo

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I repeat, "Whoopdee fucking doo", which means, "Who fucking cares?"

YOU HAVE A TINY LITTLE SHRIMP DICK PENIS!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I got your Python, right here.

I've got a cock a NIGGER would fucking ENVY. I bet it could disappear all the way up your SHIT ENCRUSTED ASS HOLE!! OOoooohhh yeah baby, that's the stuff!

php will raise again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello,

Although python is efficient you cant downgrade php, because php is used in all most popular solutions. even today.

Abdul
www.shortreminders.com

Re:php will raise again.

[invictusvoyd]

And so is Windows .. Even today !

REALLY?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, the fact that people who are forced into programming in Java spend more time (out of necessity) googling for tutorials than they do writing code means that Java is the most popular language?

Another interpretation might be...

[Anonymous Coward]

Java, Python, &or php are some of the most common starter languages; once an amateur has a couple of them down, they're better at finding tutorials by going straight to sites that host them - without the intermediary Google search.

Re:Another interpretation might be...

[Zontar The Mindless]

Isn't PHP Lesson #1 that you can find $anything you need to know about it by typing "php.net/anything" into your location bar?

But... but...

[DaTroof]

Didn't Slashdot just run a post about how WordPress (written in PHP!) powers 25% of the web?

Why, yes. Yes, they did.

Please stop the hyperbolic clickbait.

Re:But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no contradiction here. Just because people are searching Google for how to learn Python does not mean WP isn't the most popular CMS. Clearly you didn't read either article, nor even understand either summary.

Re:But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Slashdot just run a post about how WordPress (written in PHP!) powers 25% of the web?

Why, yes. Yes, they did.

Please stop the hyperbolic clickbait.

Well I for one will refuse to believe PHP is dying until Netcraft confirms it.

Re:But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The web is a very small portion of all software, you buttplug. PHP tends not to be used outside of web development, while Python sees all sorts of other use, from web development, to scientific computing, to sysadmin scripts, to desktop apps, to prototypes, and beyond.

If you're going to rag on the Slashdot editors, at least have the decency to be correct. You're just flat out ignorant in this case.

Re:But... but...

[Spy Handler]

Aside from the top dog Wordpress, the next two popular CMS are Joomla and Drupal. Which also use.... php

It's like that in ecommerce also. The #1 ecommerce software is Magento (php). #2 is Woocommerce (php). #3 is Prestashop (php). #5 and #7 and #8 are also in php. Something like 60 to 70% of all ecommerce sites on the internet are in php. 2015 ecommerce platform rankings

... and here on slashdot?

[damn_registrars]

Perl. Perl all the way through, and nothing but Perl. Apparently after they canned the guy who took credit for writing it, they didn't feel it was worth while to put any additional money into the code, ever again (and it seems that attitude has continued through subsequent acquisitions).

Re:... and here on slashdot?

[Waffle Iron]

they didn't feel it was worth while to put any additional money into the code, ever again

Not true. Just recently they came dangerously close to completely ruining this site with an investment in new code. Thankfully, they backed down.

The truth of the matter is, there is no reason to upgrade the code. In fact, I'd prefer if they reverted to one of the older versions from earlier years that has fewer "Web 2.0" stunts and just serves up the damned text.

Re:... and here on slashdot?

[hankwang]

"no reason to upgrade the code. In fact, I'd prefer if they reverted to one of the older versions from earlier years that has fewer "Web 2.0" stunts and just serves up the damned text."

Here are som reasons to upgrade:

* support unicode,
* get workable access to preferences (if you enable "classic mode?, all kind of stuff breaks, including getting back to default D2 mode.).
* Get a decent mobile view (Can't access it when logged in and it's unworkable anyway on my quad-core, 2 GB RAM phone). That's why I maintain avantslash (see signature).
* Support https.

Soylentnews forked the last public release of slashcode and did a pretty good job. Unfortunately the community is too small to get good discussions going on technical subjects.

Re:... and here on slashdot?

[Antique Geekmeister]

> Perl. Perl all the way through, and nothing but Perl.

Python has been suffering from module dependencies lately, where the "pip install" tool for installing 3rd-party modules deploys a rats' nest of potentially incompatible latest releases of all the dependencies from python.pi.org. This is similar to what happened with CPAN over time, except that CPAN for perl was much, much worse about individual modules introducing incompatible upgrades, and other modules being long unmaintained so they would never be upgraded for compatibility. I'm afraid I encountered this at least once a year for 10 years after the "mod_perl" update debacle.

Re:... and here on slashdot?

[dwpro]

+1 to those. Also:

* make a decent comment entry editor that makes quoting, numbering, bullet points, tables, etc. less of a pain in the ass.

You would get some better comments on here if you could post data in an organized way, IMHO. It feels insane to be asking for these minor things in 2015.

Re:... and here on slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is sad is soylent took a few devs and bashed out a better version that fails gracefully and uses more modern versions of Apache and perl. They even managed to get unicode in there (which turns out was never that important). They even fixed many usability problems.

The current owners of SD do not care. Not surprising. Was not really sure how it was going to make money.

Re:... and here on slashdot?

[gustygolf]

The problem with mod_perl was one of perception: It was meant to extend Apache, and its documentation reflected that. Easy writing of Apache modules without touching C code. Its primary aim was to be a Perl API to Apache. This is very much comparable to the recent Lua extensions on the NetBSD kernel.

You did not need mod_perl to run Perl code on Apache. In fact, it was probably one of the less efficient ways to do so: if your script needed large amounts of memory, the memory remained mapped to the relevant Apache process and wouldn't get freed. Swapped out perhaps, but not freed.

Besides, global variables were shared so mod_perl was definitely not a good way to run multiple "web applications", much less user-installed ones!

(In case you ask: to run Perl code on a web server today, you should use Plack; back then you should have used FastCGI.)

I guess the confusion was driven by mod_php which was the de facto way of running PHP on Apache, without resorting to the terrible slowness of CGI.

Re:... and here on slashdot?

[hankwang]

I think the text-centric nature of slashdot is a big plus. I wouldn't want it to turn into yet another web forum with inline images, huge sigs, animated smileys, and people writing like 14-year-olds. When I have a keyboard, I don't mind the html markup either. But on a phone, it's a pain.

Re:... and here on slashdot?

[dwpro]

I agree, don't let it go crazy.

Just a few options for formatting plain old text and you can paste a few cells of data into a textbox and not lose all alignment.

Re:... and here on slashdot?

[Antique Geekmeister]

> The problem with mod_perl was one of perception:

The problem with the mod_perl update was one of naming and numbering. The version that supported httpd, sometimes called "Apache 2", was _among_ the mod_perl 1.9xxx releases, and it was very difficult to tell which "1.9xxx" release was compatible with what. Older perl modules that were only compatible with the older releases had to all be updated to require a release _less than_ 1.9xxx, or they would break when installed with "cpan install". And if your software required 2 modules, one of them with a recent release compatible only with the old mod_perl, and the other compatible only with the newer mod_perl, you had to trace back each individual module to find a version compatible with the dependencies of the other. This was hellish for web developers, and it _kept happening_ anytime anyone introduced or updated anything that used mod_perl.

The version compatible with Apache 1.3 should have retained the name "mod_perl", and it could have been supported until Debian finally stopped publishing Apache 1.3 packages alongside HTTPD 2.x packages. The new mod_perl could, and should, have been named mod_perl2 to reflect its incompatibility with the old codebase. This would have protected old modules compatible only with the older codebases and preserved forward compatibility. Newer packages could, and would, have used the new codebase by specifically calling it, without having to deduce the specific mod_perl 1.9xxx release where compatibility broke.

30+ year programmer here chiming in

[Anonymous Coward]

PHP is my language of choice. Yes the language has issues, but it's almost always able to get the job done in the least amount of time - plus it works in so many different environments.

It makes coding fun, especially for prototyping and playing around. Not to mention I code circles around the Java and C# guys at work.

(Otherwise, I'm all about C)

Re: 30+ year programmer here chiming in

[Anonymous Coward]

You arenâ(TM)t coding circles around anyone corky. Apples to apples for anything but dumb little Web Apps php is shit. C# is great and Java ok. But mainly you're full of shit because 90% of modern Web app work is client side.

white space white space..

[Anonymous Coward]

Come get your white space.

Duck typing and GIL

[dremon]

Because of the duck typing maintaining, extending and refactoring any non-trivial Python project is a fubar. Make a typo in the variable name and catch this bug 2 months later in the production deployment. Thank you very much, but no unit tests from the whole world will cover this.

Because of the GIL it doesn't scale across the modern hardware so it forces programmer into process-level parallelism and 3rd-party http server with wsgi crap which gives deployment and maintenance headaches.

Because of the interpreting nature it is too slow to be considered as good choice for any CPU-intensive tasks (not only math but anything outside of I/O and networking).

I must admit though that it is great for scripting. So there should it stay forever and personally I'd run away from any job description which includes Python as a primary language.

Re:Duck typing and GIL

[gnupun]

All valid points. Python's backend is not very powerful, unlike its elegant front-end (the language and APIs).

Make a typo in the variable name and catch this bug 2 months later in the production deployment. Thank you very much, but no unit tests from the whole world will cover this.

The typo problem is present in most scripting languages. Isn't Lua, which is similar to Python, used in many production games?

Re: Duck typing and GIL

[Anonymous Coward]

Python is the language of choice for many data scientists. They do plenty of math. And fast. Numpy, Scipy, Theano, etc. all do a great job using CPU vectorization and GPGPU. That's a great match for any math intensive application because math involves lots of matrix and vector operations where your favorited thread based parallelism is a bad fit anyway.

For any other parallel task what you want is either event driven multi tasking, or pooled worker tasks with shared nothing. Python has great support for both.

The GIL is of little practical importance.

Re: Duck typing and GIL

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you don't have a clue what you are talking about.

Jobs with python as the primary language make a clear statement: we want you to be at your bat productivity level so you can shine with your inspiration and insight rather than your language syntax skills.

I know many languages and seldom have I seen a community less concerned with language syntax or mind blowing coding guidelines. The average python dev is simply much more concerned with the actual problem at hand and just solves it. The language does a great job of not getting in your way but enabling a productive working mode unlike most other languages.

Re:Duck typing and GIL

[Anonymous Coward]

The typo problem is present in most scripting languages. Isn't Lua, which is similar to Python, used in many production games?

There is a few things that dynamic typing can mess up, but thankfully there are ways around most of them.
Run pylint on your code and you'll catch all the cases where you have a name that doesn't exist, along with a bunch of other things.
Write decent tests and you'll be _almost_ as safe as with a statically typed language.

I suppose these are true for most dynamically typed languages. You just have to know the strengths and weaknesses of your language and address the problems that might be there.

Re:Duck typing and GIL

[Anonymous Coward]

"Production games" might not be a good benchmark. Compared to the software industry at large, games have much different development, release, and support cycles. A game is developed, released, and then left to rot. Even with modern DLC-supported online games, the support lifetime of any one game is rarely longer than a year or two; which is nothing by software industry standards.

Re:Duck typing and GIL

[gnupun]

So they throw away all the code for the game and start afresh when they release version N+1?

Re:PYPL shows your wife NIGGERDICKS She says YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to ask whether he'd like fries with that.

You forgot to wipe that extra cum off your chin from the nigger penises you love to suck. There is also a thin layer of your own fecal matter on the outside of your mouth because you love it when the niggerdicks fuck you in the ass (using their large girth and your blood for lube) and finishing in your mouth with a nice money shot.

Verbosity !=readability

[Anonymous Coward]

Verbose notions of readability are misguided. Every time someone discourages brevity and says that something takes 5 times as much code but is more "readable", I wonder how they haven't noticed the unnecessary time and mental energy they are wasting.

The only way to get 5 times the LOC is to have more state to track across those lines. You could argue that a single line 5x as long due to having mnemonic names is clearer than one with just a,b,c or whatever, but 5 lines vs 1 line means you have 4 statements through which you have to track the names and meanings of symbols before you can understand the ultimate line. That is not more readability, that is overhead. That is taking up space in your short term memory (which has real, physical limitations).

just kick a stone to find one

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are walking down the street and accidentally kick a stone, you will find that underneath that stone there was a guy programming in php... They are everywhere these days.

You make me laugh!

[aglider]

From that pesky website:

Index is created by analyzing how often language tutorials are searched on Google

And how should this be related to rise and fall of a programming language popularity?
I would instead say that it shows how hard a programming language is to be learnt or mastered.
This study is completely flawed and aimed to religion wars among programmers!
Every one actually knows that C is the king of all languages, you insensitive statistical clod!

I just started re-learning Perl5

[Anonymous Coward]

I know my comment shows up a bit late but I just started re-learning Perl5.

I have a well valued history in programming different languages. Assembler, C, Java and Scripting. The past years I did a lot in Bash to save a lot of repeated command line hacking when I needed to enter always the same stuff.

A few of my projects reached a nice amount of wrokflow (and size: 25k bash). And thus I decided to have a few changes here. In the 90's I was told that Perl replaces Bash, AWK, SED, Grep and co. and thus the people who told me where right.

I sat down and made some thoughts which way to go. Perl and Python came into my mind. Sure Python seem to have some adantages as well because it seem to be more mainstream. But at the end I settled with Perl because Perl is what I wanted.

If you compare the scripting features then it's this Bash for basic stuff, Perl and Python for more advaned followed by all the modern (or more complex) Languages like C or Java.

After reading the book "Beginning Perl" from Curtis Poe, I started to realize that the language has indeed a "different" syntax. Datatypes are dealt differently. Scalars, Hashs and Arrays etc.. I came to the point where I tought if the code is portable to something else one day. E.g. if I switch from Bash to Perl to e.g. Java.

But then. It's always up to the programmer to write clean code.

The reason why I didn't went the Python way... Because everyone is jumping on it... It makes one become one of many people...

Think of the children!

[mlush]

In the UK at least Python is being taught in secondary schools (ages 11 to 16) this could account for a lot of tutorial searches.

Re:Think of the children!

[Crookdotter]

I have learnt python this September to teach it to 16 year olds. It is extremely easy to pick up as a language and some of the libraries are very useful and efficient. Loading a text file in one line kind of thing seems easy to learn for kids. I'm disappointed by the lack of an easy GUI, tkinter just seems awful after the simplicity of initial python for kids. I'd much prefer a more visual studio type approach to python, with an easy to drag and drop set of GUI elements, but then again, I teach python in a strange environment where the tasks are prescribed and the kids don't really have proper access to their machines.

Re:Think of the children!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am old enough to have been taught BASIC in school. A crippled language that does things too different from other (useful) languages to have much portability. Having built applications in half a dozen of the more useful languages since, Python seems to me to be the perfect choice to teach children (and adult scientists): easy to learn and write, immediately useful, capable of advanced code, popular enough in industry, and great as a life-long tool for scripting.

As such, it is gaining popularity in the non-developer world, who are more likely to look at tutorials rather than APIs. Likely, it's use is greatly exaggerated. Nevertheless, it is a damn fine tool and deserves recognition.

Unlike the parent though, I am very much against teaching a visual-studio like environment, at least to start with. It takes time away from learning to code in order to learn how to use the visual studio, with all the lock-in that entails, and gives just enough hand-holding that students can build something without fully understanding what they are doing. Teach scripting instead of GUIs (ie: python + imagemagick).

"Make it more pleasant"

[Anonymous Coward]

How about you fix the terrible PHP parser so it isn't TRIVIAL to write unsecure code?

Don't give me your bullshit about how it is easy to avoid that problem, you are not the reason this is a problem, the other 70% of the users that use PHP are the problem. The amateurs that google some morons stackoverflow post, or some shit blog post on a REALLY NEATO piece of code that leaves their website open for attack with automated tools.
Literally no other language has the problems PHP does at the level it does. PHP is KING of being broken by design. FIX IT.

For all the things PHP to be "dying" to, it had to be Python.
For a start, those people are probably trying to figure out why the hell their code isn't working because they thought whitespace was a GRRREAT way to enclose code in distinct groups, be it functions or whatever.

Py-PL?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems really objective. And they're using Google search results as a metric. We all know Google is a Python/Java shop. Java at #1, followed by Python "on the rise". No surprise here.

object oriented system in perl 5 is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

The object oriented system of perl 5 can not keep data hidden. There is autovivification, and other crazy stuff possible with perl 5.... Knowing the entire language requires lots of constant work to keep it in memory.

Re:object oriented system in perl 5 is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

> The object oriented system of perl 5 can not keep data hidden.

Yes. "Perl doesn't have an infatuation with enforced privacy." You're supposed to name private methods and variables with an underscore. This lack of hiddenness is nice when you need to hack around a module.

More pertinent criticisms of Perl's OO exist.

> There is autovivification, and other crazy stuff possible with perl 5....

I admit that I had a bug due to autovivification just a few months ago, but the other option is checking each level of a multi-level hash whether it's NULL lest you get an exception, and that approach is not that great either.

> Knowing the entire language requires lots of constant work to keep it in memory.

Entire language? Sure. But I don't think it's much more complex than any other modern language, once you "get" Perl.

Re:object oriented system in perl 5 is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I admit that I had a bug due to autovivification just a few months ago, but the other option is checking each level of a multi-level hash...

Or use Data::Diver.

Re:object oriented system in perl 5 is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a module for that.

There are OO frameworks for Perl, written in Perl, giving you more advanced OO syntax.

You Say That Like They Are Related

[Anonymous Coward]

Python and PHP have two completely different use cases. They're not related at all. Your implication is absurd.

The power of Prime Time!

[ArhcAngel]

I knew this was going to happen the moment that teenage chic on the episode of Blindspt last week started dissing the FBI chic over using PHP.

Yes, yes but

[Anonymous Coward]

what about Fortran? Should I learn Fortran?

Re:Yes, yes but

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. But forget your grandfather's Fortran IV, 77, 90... you need to learn Visual Object Fortran++ to be relevant today.

Just search for it on Code School, Code Academy, Khan Academy, School Academy etc.!

PYPL is a stock ticker

[Anonymous Coward]

you can't just take a stock ticker and make it your website's name. PYPL?

People are Learning Perl because of Something Else

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that an increase in the people attempting to learn Perl could be just a side effect of them trying to learn another technology. Take Hadoop into consideration, if I'm a developer attempting to learn Hadoop I can learn Java or Purl to complete the same body of work in Hadoop. There are also parts of Hadoop that uses functional programming which wasn't supported in earlier versions of Java so they needed to look at Purl to support that aspect of the architecture.

Ever heard of Java HFT?

[kervin]

Java has been doing realtime for over a decade now. In fact the very first JSR was JSR 1: Real-time Specification for Java which began in 1998.

Saying Java is not suitable for realtime due to "unpredictable GC" shows you haven't read much on the topic. Many Java open-source projects guarantee millions of operations per second on the right hardware. Java has a huge HFT community footprint.

Take a look at what http://chronicle.software/ and OpenHFT is doing for instance.

Meh

[bigsexyjoe]

Some languages are better than others for certain tasks, and some languages, like PHP, are crap. While there are things that PHP will do better than C++, there's basically nothing that PHP will do better than Python.

Likewise, I can think of no case for staring a new project in COBOL.

Re:PYPL shows your wife NIGGERDICKS She says YAY!

[Zontar The Mindless]

You forgot to check your fail.