How good Phyton is?

[LVUER]

Lately, when I browse around the internet, I found more and more good but free softwares are built using Phyton. I used to want to learn Phyton but simply didn't have enough time to do so (at least now I have one day off more than usual).

But I'm still curious about Phyton. The question is already obvious as you can see from the title, "How good Phyton is?"

Let's say if I'm learning Phyton throughfully, is it worth it?

Also is Phyton an old language? It seems that I heard about it ages ago, when I first messed around with database. And if I'm not wrong, Pyhton has strong connection with Pascal?

I already ask this question to PyTom (via PM) but then I just realized that lately, there are more and more Phyton experts lurking around LSF. So I really want to hear everyone's opinion.

For the reference, I once fell in love with Pascal (Turbo Pascal 7.0 and Borland Delphi 5.0) and often used PHP (job's demand). Although now I more often uses Basic (VB.NET 2000-2005), again jobs' demands.

Note: With PyTom's permission, I'll also add his answer on this question (still waiting his permission).

[Neon Lemmy Koopa]

Ive gone through many programming languages trying to find a good one to study. Python was one of them. Actually, Python was one of my favorites (until I discovered Java, but thats another story). As with any programming languages, Python's capabilities are endless. Many libraries have been programmed for it, and if you need something, you can create your own.

It's intended to be more on the readable side, whereas someone with a small bit of knowledge of programming can understand what it does. Readability also helps to make it an easier language to code in than say C++ or Java. I actually think it has an easy-to-remember syntax (although Ive forgotten whatever little bit I knew XD)

It's also cross platform, so it will run on any supporting systems, and from what I know it is shipped with Mac OS X and some Linux Distros.

As far as age goes, I know that Python came sometime in the '80s, but wasn't published until 1991. It reached version 1.0 in early '94.

IMO, with a little devotion and motivation, any programming language is worth learning. Python is an excellent language, and as I said before, the possibilities are virtually endless. There's not much of a learning curve (unless you're used to some other languages, but even then its not much), and once you get it, things will go smoothly.

After all, the original bittorrent client was coded in Python, as well as its GUI!

[LVUER]

Alright, after getting his permission, here's his reply:

Since you are so good with Phyton, I want to ask you something. How good Phyton is? I mean, if I study throughfully, is it worth it?

Python is good as a glue language. It make processing text and logic very efficient. It isn't a very fast language, so it's best used to to glue together components that are written in C, C++, etc.

Phyton is an old language isn't it? And if I'm not wrong, Pyhton has strong connection with Pascal?

Well, it was first released in 1991, and has been constantly evolving since then. So I wouldn't really call it an old language yet.

I don't know of any pascal connection in Python. There's more of a C heritage than Pascal, but even that isn't terribly strong.

[Wintermoon]

Python is easy to learn, easy to use, and very powerful. Its only real disadvantage is runtime performance.

I know dozens of programming languages. I only use two of them regularly. Python is one of those two.

[PyTom]

I'm kinda curious: What's the other?

[jack_norton]

Same as wintermoon. I only use 2 languages now, Python and C/C++.
I suspect he's using the same or python and java/flex

[Wintermoon]

C++ (real C++, not "C/C++") is my other language of choice. It's not a pretty language and it took a long time to learn, but it's fast, it interfaces nicely with both C++ and C libraries, and with proper use of modern techniques (RAII, smart pointers, policy-based design, etc.), it's almost as powerful as Python, if a lot more verbose.

[LVUER]

I'm kinda curious: What's the other?

Now I'm curious too... PyTom, other than Python, what programming language do you usually use?

And since you say Phyton is good as a glue language, what is the best pair for Phyton (just curious).

[PyTom]

I tend to use some mix of C and C++ as my "fast" language. Although when someone mentions "template metaprogramming", I run in the other direction as fast as I can. (To be fair, Stroustrup has basically convinced me that it will be saner in C++0x.) I'm also not a fan of iostreams, as I don't think the in-program datatypes should control the type of the output. I much prefer something like Perl's pack or Python's struct.pack, which takes a signature for the output.

Apart from that, it's whatever tool is appropriate for the job. I use Java, Javascript, Lisp, Bash Shell... you name it, I've probably used it at one point or another.

(Except C#, which I've never used, for some reason. No fault of C#'s, it's just that I haven't done much with the CLR.)

[Counter Arts]

If people programs device drivers in using co-routines in python then their life would be sooooo easy...

Would coroutines be enabled in ren'py? Just curious.

[PyTom]

Would coroutines be enabled in ren'py? Just curious.

I have no plans for it. I don't see how I would save a coroutine when the game is saved, for example.

(A working PyPy might change my mind on a lot of things, however.)

[Guest]

Python is a good language. It is opensource, is constantly updated, peoples make new libraries to extend the language frequently. So even if it's an old language (what C, C++, Object Pascal are old languages too), I think it's worth learning. Even more if you plan to develop applications faster (not develop fast applications >.<)

Well, script languages are really good to game development too, since you can develop a base framework in a compiled language and use the script language just for the game logic (so you don't have to compile the same thing every once -- some compilers are really slow -- just to see if the sprite position/velocity is good).

I can't say much about Python, actually, since I just started learning it in the past 3 months. I'm an Object Pascal programmer (I like readable codes and that's why I don't like much C/C++), but I use ASP, JavaScript, and other languages, depending on what I want to develop.

[Neon Lemmy Koopa]

Except C#, which I've never used, for some reason. No fault of C#'s, it's just that I haven't done much with the CLR.

Trust me: you don't want to use C#. It's built on MS's crappy .Net framework, it's slow, it's buggy and it's not really cross platform.

So even if it's an old language (what C, C++, Object Pascal are old languages too), I think it's worth learning.

Actually, in my own opinion, I think older languages are better to learn than more recently created ones. Chances are more can be done with older languages, like Python (if you consider '91 old, cause I do), C/C++, etc.

[PyTom]

Trust me: you don't want to use C#. It's built on MS's crappy .Net framework, it's slow, it's buggy and it's not really cross platform.

I'm ducking and covering, since there's a good chance Jake will read this thread.

[ficedula]

Not just him; frankly though, it's late for me to feed the trolls.