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Re:Why Python keeps growing, explained by deafpolygon on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:34AM (#35007171)
> but with FANTASTIC libraries written in C

ftfy - it's the only way a tragically slow language like Python can keep up.

Re:Why Python keeps growing, explained by dagw on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:43AM (#35007224)
libraries written in C

That is simply not true. Even libraries like numpy, scipy and scikit-learn are majority python code.

Re:Why Python keeps growing, explained by deafpolygon on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:50AM (#35007274)
Majority python code, being ~60% is mostly wrapper code, with the slowest parts (the parts that matter) written in C.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1825857/how-much-of-nump...

Re:Why Python keeps growing, explained by grog_tremor on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:51AM (#35007284)
Eh, you massively overestimate the importance of performance.

For the vast majority of use cases, performance just isn't a priority. Doubly so for Python, that shines for simple automation, command line applications, and perhaps some serveless computing.

Being easy to write, having a good ecosystem of libraries, and being widely known is typically good enough. I wouldn't use Python to write a robust backend server side application, mostly because the language doesn't lend itself well for it.

Re:Why Python keeps growing, explained by deafpolygon on Friday March 03, 2023 @04:06AM (#35007380)
Eh, you make incorrect assumptions about me. I'm stating a fact why Python is used - the data science ecosystem in Python thrives because of well-written libraries _written in C_ under the hood AND an easy-to-use language that writes like pseudocode.

If it was too slow, we'd be doing all of this in Java, the C# or maybe doing it in C/Fortran. But because of some early design decisions (Guido being on the matrix-sig helped), the history behind Numeric/Numarray and finally NumPy and SciPy being based on those efforts allowed it to thrive.

Re:Why Python keeps growing, explained by grog_tremor on Friday March 03, 2023 @04:30AM (#35007524)
> it's the only way a tragically slow language like Python can keep up.

Those were your words, not mine. I need not make any assumptions.

I just replied listing use cases where Python shine due to its strengths, performance being mostly irrelevant. I didn't even mention data science.

And although it's beyond the point, if I was to use Python, why should I care in which language a library was written? If the language allows libraries written in other languages, this is actually a nice feature.

Re:Why Python keeps growing, explained by UncleEntity on Friday March 03, 2023 @04:38AM (#35007579)
> If the language allows libraries written in other languages, this is actually a nice feature.

That’s actually my primary use case for python, playing with C/C++ libraries in a repl because they don’t natively have one.

Sure, it takes work to wrap a library but that’s something I enjoy doing.

Re:Why Python keeps growing, explained by mort96 on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:52AM (#35007292)
Does it matter?
Re:Why Python keeps growing, explained by UncleEntity on Friday March 03, 2023 @04:41AM (#35007596)
Because it’s proof, PROOF!!!, that python is inferior to their favorite language.

Just wait until they learn the python interpreter is written in C… <grabs popcorn>

Re:Why Python keeps growing, explained by ihatepython on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:55AM (#35007312)
Don't forget about FORTRAN