Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Will Python Become The Dominant Programming Language?
An anonymous reader shares their thoughts on language popuarity:
In the PYPL index, which is based on Google searches and is supposed to be forward looking, the trend is unmistakable. Python is rising fast and Java and others are declining. Combine this with the fact that Python is now the most widely taught language in the universities. In fields such as data science and machine learning, Python is already dominating. "Python where you can, C++ where you must" enterprises are following suit too, especially in data science but for everything else from web development to general purpose computing...
People who complain that you can't build large scale systems without a compiler likely over-rely on the latter and are slaves to IDEs. If you write good unit tests and enforce Test Driven Development, the compiler becomes un-necessary and gets in the way. You are forced to provide too much information to it (also known as boilerplate) and can't quickly refactor code, which is necessary for quick iterations.
The original submission ends with a question: "Is Python going to dominate in the future?" Slashdot readers should have some interesting opinions on this. So leave your own thoughts in the comments. Will Python become the dominant programming language?
People who complain that you can't build large scale systems without a compiler likely over-rely on the latter and are slaves to IDEs. If you write good unit tests and enforce Test Driven Development, the compiler becomes un-necessary and gets in the way. You are forced to provide too much information to it (also known as boilerplate) and can't quickly refactor code, which is necessary for quick iterations.
The original submission ends with a question: "Is Python going to dominate in the future?" Slashdot readers should have some interesting opinions on this. So leave your own thoughts in the comments. Will Python become the dominant programming language?
It doesn't have a threading problem. It solves the threading vs process problem. CPU bound threats *should* be processes. And it is safer and more efficient to have 1 GIL per CPU. IO bound threads should be threads. This why threads developed on 1-CPU machines and multi-process model developed on multi-CPU machines. Python has 2 libraries with effectively unifying model for inter-thread communications, but one uses processes while the other threads. Both have almost the same API. Processes are bad if you need a context switch before data can travel from one task's to another task's space. In modern processes, you lose more by having data travel from 1 L1 cache to another L1 cache. So you might as well have 1 CPU-bound thread per core when your threads are CPU-bound and do very little talking to each other. Which exactly what you get with multiprocess threading library.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Back in the day, BBC Basic had both PROC & FN commands
There is nothing wrong with GOTO, just as there is nothing wrong with longjmp or branch or break to label, it all depends on how and when you use it.