Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Why Python

Python Experts - Why They Do Python

Matthew: """Python syntax encourages programmers to write easy-to-read programs . [...]  A well-written python program reads like a book. """
The homogenization of scientific computing, or why Python is steadily eating other languages’ lunch
Tad: """A few years ago, you couldn’t really do statistics in Python unless you wanted to spend most of your time pulling your hair out and wishing Python were more like R (which, is a pretty remarkable confession considering what R is like)."""
Paypal engineering: 10 myths of enterprise python:
Myth #7: Python does not scale
"""Scale has many definitions, but by any definition, YouTube is a web site at scale. More than 1 billion unique visitors per month, over 100 hours of uploaded video per minute, and going on 20 pecent of peak Internet bandwidth, all with Python as a core technology. Dropbox, Disqus, Eventbrite, Reddit, Twilio, Instagram, Yelp, EVE Online, Second Life, and, yes, eBay and PayPal all have Python scaling stories that prove scale is more than just possible: it’s a pattern."""
Astronomers switch from IDL to Python. IDL is a vector oriented programming language. A wiki version of the IDL vs Python comparison, comment from the blog IDL vs. Python:
"Lately I’ve gotten increasingly frustrated with programming in IDL: [...] I find myself spending more and more time on “stupid stuff” like wrestling with the ancient and limited plotting system, building very ugly GUIs which nonetheless take vast amounts of cumbersome code to build, and dealing with namespace conflicts between routines with identical names in different libraries. Python is not perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot better than IDL in all of these aspects. Like I said, I’m only halfway switched (and certain collaborations are going to keep me in IDL for years, as will all my legacy code) but for new stuff Python seems like it’s got the wind behind its sails."

Interesting modules


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