Comment by exceptione
2 days ago
For any programming really, but I think Python got big due to
a) the huge influx of beginners into IT,
b) lots of intro material available in Python and
c) having a simple way to run your script and get feedback (same as PHP)
I say that as someone urging people to look beyond Python when they master the basics of programming.
Python has a terseness that is hard to rival. I think that was a major selling point: its constructs and use of whitespace mean that a valid Python program looks pretty close to the pseudo-code one might write to reason out the problem before writing it in another language.
I doubt that this is the selling point. Imho it is nothing special compared to Haskell, F# and the likes.
It's a huge selling point for me and many I know who knows it. Nothing like code that you can read like you're reading a book/article.
Python doesn't require you to understand monads to write useful Python.
To be clear: Haskell is great, but its entire vibe (lazy evaluation, pure functions) is entirely different from what Python's about. Someone who knows C++ or Java has a much bigger gap to jump to pick up Haskell than to pick up Python.
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