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Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development?

References (13 earlier) <mailman.1995.1306205762.9059.python-list@python.org> <87sjs44qyk.fsf@castleamber.com> <mailman.2012.1306231771.9059.python-list@python.org> <87zkmcujl4.fsf@castleamber.com> <20110524133902.b5ad22b1.darcy@druid.net>
Date 2011-05-25 08:01 +1000
Subject Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development?
From Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.python
Message-ID <mailman.2041.1306274502.9059.python-list@python.org> (permalink)

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On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 3:39 AM, D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@druid.net> wrote:
> My point was that even proponents of the language can make a
> significant error based on the way the variable is named.  It's like
> the old Fortran IV that I first learned where the name of the variable
> determined whether it was an integer or a floating point.

I believe that's the origin of one of the proofs that God is real
(unless declared integer). And hey, I can't hate something that gave
us the classic use of i, j, k as loop indices!

> One of my favorite quotes (not sure if it was about Perl or APL) is "I
> refuse to use a programming language where the proponents of it stick
> snippets under each other's nose and say 'I bet you can't guess what
> this does.'"

Yes, I believe that was Perl. And an amusing quote. But most of the
point of it comes from the fact that Perl uses punctuation for most of
its keywords, whereas (say) Python uses English words; it's a lot more
fun to crunch something down when you can use $| and friends than when
you have to put "x and y", complete with spaces, for a simple boolean.
But that says nothing about which language is actually better for
working with... beyond the fact that Perl can get more mileage out of
an 80-character line!

> When I first looked at Perl it looked like line noise.  When I first
> looked at Python it looked like pseudo-code.

When I first looked at assembly language it looked like random junk
left behind in memory. When I first looked at COBOL it looked like ...
COBOL. Doesn't make either of them better or worse.

Pseudo-code is not a viable language for a computer to parse, but it's
a good language for scribbling down comments in. That doesn't
necessarily mean that a programming language that's "closer to"
pseudo-code is good. And verbosity doesn't necessarily equate to
quality; for instance, when I'm working in both Python and PHP, I find
it FAR tidier to use Python's {1:2,3:4] notation than PHP's
array(1=>2,3=>4) - but on the flip side, I would prefer to have
program structure defined by keywords like "if" and "while" than
obscure random line noise. (Fortunately, most sane languages do indeed
use keywords there.)

Chris Angelico

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Thread

Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Beliavsky <beliavsky@aol.com> - 2011-05-20 09:39 -0700
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Dotan Cohen <dotancohen@gmail.com> - 2011-05-20 23:47 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-22 15:01 +1000
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-22 10:44 +0300
    Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Ulrich Eckhardt <ulrich.eckhardt@dominolaser.com> - 2011-05-23 12:56 +0200
      Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Duncan Booth <duncan.booth@invalid.invalid> - 2011-05-23 11:28 +0000
      Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 08:25 +0300
    Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Kevin Walzer <kw@codebykevin.com> - 2011-05-24 10:09 -0400
      Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-25 00:43 +1000
      Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 19:11 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Daniel Kluev <dan.kluev@gmail.com> - 2011-05-22 19:20 +1100
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-22 15:47 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2011-05-22 12:09 -0700
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2011-05-22 18:01 -0400
    Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-22 18:55 -0500
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Daniel Kluev <dan.kluev@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 10:42 +1100
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 08:31 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 09:06 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 16:37 +1000
    Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-23 10:26 -0500
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2011-05-23 02:37 -0400
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Daniel Kluev <dan.kluev@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 19:05 +1100
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Aleksandar Radulovic <alex@a13x.net> - 2011-05-23 08:52 +0000
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 11:49 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 12:01 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 12:41 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Daniel Kluev <dan.kluev@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 20:58 +1100
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Daniel Kluev <dan.kluev@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 21:16 +1100
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 14:17 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Daniel Kluev <dan.kluev@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 22:32 +1100
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2011-05-23 13:08 -0400
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 22:05 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-23 14:10 +0300
    Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-24 00:17 -0500
      Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" <darcy@druid.net> - 2011-05-24 06:09 -0400
        Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-24 11:52 -0500
          Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" <darcy@druid.net> - 2011-05-24 13:39 -0400
            Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-24 13:17 -0500
              Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2011-05-27 15:48 +1200
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2011-05-26 23:53 -0700
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2011-05-27 09:47 -0400
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Karim <karim.liateni@free.fr> - 2011-05-27 22:10 +0200
            Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "thegist@nospam.net" <thegist@nospam.net> - 2011-05-25 17:30 -0400
              Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-25 23:52 +0000
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "thegist@nospam.net" <thegist@nospam.net> - 2011-05-26 11:05 -0400
          Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-25 08:01 +1000
            Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-24 18:16 -0500
              Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-25 09:38 +1000
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-24 20:48 -0500
            Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Thorsten Kampe <thorsten@thorstenkampe.de> - 2011-05-25 09:31 +0200
              Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-25 07:01 -0500
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2011-05-25 12:54 -0400
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2011-05-25 10:17 -0700
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-25 14:14 -0500
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Matty Sarro <msarro@gmail.com> - 2011-05-25 17:19 -0400
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> - 2011-05-26 12:44 +0000
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2011-05-26 08:51 -0400
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-26 23:11 +1000
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-26 13:35 +0000
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? RainyDay <andrei.avk@gmail.com> - 2011-05-25 17:15 -0700
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-25 23:01 +0000
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-25 22:00 -0500
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Ben Finney <ben@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-26 14:25 +1000
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-26 10:36 -0500
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2011-05-26 16:03 -0400
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-27 03:07 +0000
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Thorsten Kampe <thorsten@thorstenkampe.de> - 2011-05-27 10:10 +0200
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-27 09:31 +0000
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2011-05-27 10:12 -0700
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Karim <karim.liateni@free.fr> - 2011-05-26 22:27 +0200
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2011-05-26 09:18 -0700
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Thorsten Kampe <thorsten@thorstenkampe.de> - 2011-05-26 10:24 +0200
            Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-25 23:25 +0000
          Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2011-05-24 23:00 -0700
            Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2011-05-25 07:36 -0400
              Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-25 21:55 +1000
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2011-05-25 08:25 -0400
              Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" <darcy@druid.net> - 2011-05-25 10:23 -0400
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-25 14:56 +0000
                Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Matty Sarro <msarro@gmail.com> - 2011-05-25 11:43 -0400
              Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-26 00:26 +1000
      Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 19:10 +0300
      Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" <darcy@druid.net> - 2011-05-24 13:22 -0400
      Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 11:08 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Daniel Kluev <dan.kluev@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 14:34 +1100
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 08:39 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 09:00 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Stefan Behnel <stefan_ml@behnel.de> - 2011-05-24 08:23 +0200
    Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Kevin Walzer <kw@codebykevin.com> - 2011-05-24 10:50 -0400
      Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 19:18 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 11:10 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 18:20 +1000
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Daniel Kluev <dan.kluev@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 19:55 +1100
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" <darcy@druid.net> - 2011-05-24 06:05 -0400
    Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> - 2011-05-24 16:18 +0300
      Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-24 11:50 -0500
        Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-25 03:30 +1000
          Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-24 12:56 -0500
            Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-25 07:53 +1000
              Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-05-24 17:00 -0500
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 19:10 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@gmail.com> - 2011-05-24 19:10 +0300
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? "thegist@nospam.net" <thegist@nospam.net> - 2011-05-26 11:52 -0400
  Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? Daniel Kluev <dan.kluev@gmail.com> - 2011-05-27 08:33 +1100
    Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development? RainyDay <andrei.avk@gmail.com> - 2011-05-26 16:41 -0700

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