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'Computer History Museum' Honorees Include Python Creator Guido van Rossum (computerhistory.org)
On Wednesday the Computer History Museum, "the world's leading institution exploring the history of computing and its transformational impact on society," proudly announced the three Fellow Award honorees for 2018:
- Dov Frohman-Bentchkowsky -- "For the invention of the first commercial erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), which enabled rapid development of microprocessor-based systems."
- Dame Stephanie Shirley CH -- "For a lifetime of entrepreneurship promoting the growth of the UK software industry and the advancement of women in computing."
- Guido van Rossum -- "For the creation and evolution of the Python programming language, and for leadership of its community."
"We are delighted to induct these outstanding new Fellows with diverse contributions in hardware, in services, and in software," said Len Shustek, the Museum's board chairman. "They are true heroes of the Digital Age."
Well, he was nominated, but he closed the ticket five minutes later with a WONTFIX.
It's easy to learn, great body of online documentation & it works (for many things, not all, unlike say C++ or Delphi can - my personal favs) & it seems to have a great deal of "momentum" the past 1/2 decade or so going for it (means it probably won't "go away" like some other new ones may) - that's why imo @ least!
BIGGEST SINGLE REASON IMO THOUGH? ZERO COST/FREE!
* My nephew (@ Apple for 5 yrs. now) picked up on it @ RIT & turned me onto it - I was "up & running" writing code in it in a day's time, literally.
HOWEVER: I'm not a big fan of runtime driven stuff here though - I prefer doing as much as possible yourself in your own code (more control vs. errors that way that popup in 3rd party libs/.dlls, frameworks, units/modules/.h files etc.)
I think of it as a GOOD "glue" language for scripting OR small tools in character mode/tty terms/DOS windows.
APK
P.S.=> I don't call it my 'top choice' but it does have the merits I noted above - especially if you've already been programming in the "Object.Property Method" paradigm already (most all "OOP" languages have been that way for decades now so, there ya go)...apk
Python strikes a really good balance between readability, simplicity, and power. The library support for the language is enormous. Want to write a GUI app? Wxpython. Want to make an asynchronous application? Twisted. Wamp server? Autobahn. Want to connect it to redis? pyredis. Want to do job queueing? Many available. You get the point.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Oh and how could I not mention Django for web framework!
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Python has a lot of strengths:
-it is old and stable
-very easy to learn, install, & expand
-very easy to read other's code!!
-good documentation & tutorials
-easy conceptualizations (int, list, dict, string, method, class, generator)
-hugh library that addresses 90% of common problems
-pretty big, stable, & open community
-good leadership; similar to Linux, but more dictator-like and less foul language.
-you can start small and slowly build & expand your knowledge.
-takes a good middle road in terms of hiding vs exposing complexity
-easy to prototype solutions
There are shortcomings of course. Most other languages do some of the above better. Perl for example is fairly good at most of the above but it comparibly falls short in terms of code maintenance & legibility.
The leap to Python 3 was pretty bad for the community. I just switched 2 months ago. But it's not that hard (nor easy) to switch.
Rule of Economy
Developers should value developer time over machine time, because machine cycles today are relatively inexpensive compared to prices in the 1970s. This rule aims to reduce development costs of projects.
Rule of Generation
Developers should avoid writing code by hand and instead write abstract high-level programs that generate code. This rule aims to reduce human errors and save time.
Rule of Optimization
Developers should prototype software before polishing it. This rule aims to prevent developers from spending too much time for marginal gains.
Perl for example is fairly good at most of the above but it comparibly falls short in terms of code maintenance & legibility.
That really depends on the programmer. I always write and document all my code, including Perl, with the idea that someone else, perhaps less experienced, will have to pick it up. I learned this lesson a long time ago when I had to pick up some of my own code after a few years had gone by and had to figure out what the hell I had written. Part of being a senior programmer is setting an example for more junior people on your team and helping them learn from your experience.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
If your code was properly readable, you would have to waste time documenting.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
If your code was properly readable, you would [not] have to waste time documenting.
That's not necessarily true. It's doesn't hurt to document the reasoning or necessity of some code, or something that may have been written a certain way for a specific reason. It also doesn't hurt to add documentation to help with knowledge transfer, either domain or coding. Documenting the data structures and data files (or the code to process either) is often helpful as well. Your assertion holds better for shorter, simpler programs than longer, complex ones -- assuming you've ever written any of the latter.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Erm, yeah, but WxANYTHING is Microsoft Windows MFC from the mid 1980s.
Who wants to program in that?
No idea what better Python libs are for GUI applications, but most certainly not the dreaded WxANYTHING libraries.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I always write and document all my code, including Perl, with the idea that someone else, perhaps less experienced, will have to pick it up
Trying to fix that for you ...
I always write and document all my code, especially Perl, with the idea that someone else, usual me perhaps less experienced or just not looking at the code for a decade, will have to pick it up or replace it by a more sane language
I started with Perl around 1992 or 1993 ... did some serious stuff in it around 1997 and later never looked t it again because for every funking shit I have to google what it means.
What is so damn hard in having subroutines with named parameters instead of this $0 bullshit you have to split into your own local variables?
The language was nice when it was new, because it was really much much faster than sh and csh ... and more straight forward working with files ... but as a programming language it is just for mind masochists who get their kick from: "I'm superior to you, because I van perl, you can't ..."
Perl is really a waste of time. I rejected every Perl offer I got during the last 15 years. For a reason.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Its a shame there isn't an IT equivalent of rottentomatoes.com because then poetterring would have his own special section, starting with the dogs dinner known as pulse audio and ending with the worse re-implementation of init the unix world has ever seen.
Perl for example is fairly good at most of the above but it comparibly falls short in terms of code maintenance & legibility.
I program in both and have never really understood this complaint.
I think it might be that Perl allows you to integrate RegEx directly and therefore is more commonly used. Perl's string interpolation makes print statements much cleaner and easier to understand. And how different ways is there to format a string in Python?
Compared to most languages, python was stable. You should look up the histories of C, C++, COBOL, ABAP, etc. Even today, look at Java, & Powershell. You will see people doing version checks for _minor_ releases in their code because even simple stuff has deprecated or came online.
It's a nightmare to read anyone's code! I do this quite a lot in many languages. Python is just less so than others. And if you think legibility is only from the white space, you haven't seen enough complex code. Python doesn't make it easy to write long strings of calculations. It's statements are purposely kept limited in their calculations capacity. So it's easy for people's minds to gawk as the steps of the algorithm are small and simple.
And back on white space, MIT, CalTech, Carnegie Mellon, GaTech.... all disagree with you. Do you know that each of these actually taught pseudocode for their beginning classes? And proper white space was part of the grading. It's not about the language or code but properly planning and designing your algorithm that matters. You can do that in ANY language, but python is one that has already chosen your coding style for you rather than leave it to you learn & pick from one of the few very best standards.
Not to harp on white space, but here is an actual example I have seen. Imagine an algorithm that is 20 blocks in. In most languages, it can look fine and legible. But would be horrible to update 10 years later. In python, it would look disgusting to write in the first place and would be refactored by most programmers. The language's preselected coding standard influences the programmer's design toward the verbose & simplicity.
Now this language may not be your cup of tea... that is OK! It appears to certainly be for a majority! Unlike Ruby, it's not a recent popularity; it's been around for a while.
give it a try and find out.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
It is sad that people like you, who think stupid things like that, exist.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Is Al Gore in there? He invented the Internet...