Is Python the Future of Programming? (economist.com)

The Economist argues that Guido Van Rossum resembled the reluctant Messiah in Monty Python's Life of Brian. An anonymous reader quotes their report: "I certainly didn't set out to create a language that was intended for mass consumption," he explains. But in the past 12 months Google users in America have searched for Python more often than for Kim Kardashian, a reality-TV star. The rate of queries has trebled since 2010, while inquiries after other programming languages have been flat or declining. The language's popularity has grown not merely among professional developers -- nearly 40% of whom use it, with a further 25% wishing to do so, according to Stack Overflow, a programming forum -- but also with ordinary folk. Codecademy, a website that has taught 45 million novices how to use various languages, says that by far the biggest increase in demand is from those wishing to learn Python. It is thus bringing coding to the fingertips of those once baffled by the subject. Pythonistas, as aficionados are known, have helped by adding more than 145,000 packages to the Cheese Shop, covering everything from astronomy to game development....

Python was already the most popular introductory language at American universities in 2014, but the teaching of it is generally limited to those studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics. A more radical proposal is to catch 'em young by offering computer science to all, and in primary schools. Hadi Partovi, the boss of Code.org, a charity, notes that 40% of American schools now offer such lessons, up from 10% in 2013. Around two-thirds of 10- to 12-year-olds have an account on Code.org's website. Perhaps unnerved by a future filled with automated jobs, 90% of American parents want their children to study computer science.
"The CIA has employed Python for hacking, Pixar for producing films, Google for crawling web pages and Spotify for recommending songs," notes the Economist.

Though Van Rossum was Python's Benevolent Dictator For Life, "I'm uncomfortable with that fame," he tells the magazine. "Sometimes I feel like everything I say or do is seen as a very powerful force."

Comments

Go fork yourself!

[fazig]

Hardware trends gravitate towards adding more and more CPU cores and threads in order to increase performance instead of increasing IPC and clocks. AMD will soon release their 64 thread monsters for HEDT and workstations and we're seriously discussing if Python will be the future?
Maybe in very specific niches, but I don't see it utilizing future hardware very well compared to the many other options that are capable of running multiple threads.

Re:Briefly? No.

[fermion]

I consider Python like Pascal. Some of it's popularity is simply due to the fact that it is used as a teaching tool so a lot of people are familiar with it. It can do a lot, but ultimately what makes it good as a teaching tool makes it not so good for production code.

Java and VB are the most popular languages right now. Java is taught to every high school AP computer science student. VB has the entire marketing of MS behind it.

I use python for personal projects, which are simple and direct. I can imagine Pixar using it as they write code for each movie, and are not widely deploying it to end users.

I suspect in a decade scripting is not longer going to be the status quo, and the kids will be learning programming by moving blocks. Don' scoff, it is already happening and all that is needed is to expand and refine the technology.