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Why Python?

A nice whitepaper that you can carry around to show to the suites.

Python - Language of choice for EAI; a whitepaper.

An excellent paper. I didn’t like Python when I was immature and was happy hammering away code in Perl or PHP. Once I realized that I was writing working code as fas as I could type in Python, I never wanted to program in any other language. However, this whitepaper gives all the reasons that make Python appealing to developers as well as managers.

After all, there are only few dot.com companies that are still operational. Of those, Google and Yahoo use Python. Sensible folks.

I think only those companies that realize every line of code written adds that much more to maintain will succeed. Since writing no code is not an option, anything that helps in making readable code must figure prominently on the choice list.

  1. Why not python?

    Unfortunately, there's a perceived slowness in python that everyone seems to think of. Also perl (yuck) seems more fun.

    I've got pyblosxom to run at the same speed as blosxom, albiet with more LOCs, that kind of debunk the myth that python is actually slow.

    Also it's hard to get my peers' cold dead hands off perl and PHP :) SO no proof and whitepaper is good enough for them until they try it out :(

    Posted by: wari on November 15, 2002 12:10 AM
  2. I understand the feeling. First time I saw Python, I said to myself - "whitespaces? no thank you". I really liked Zope for the kind of problems I was trying to solve. Out of necessity, I had to write a 30 line Python External Method and presto - I was hooked.

    I still prefer Perl when I've to write something quickly for data manipulation. However, experience has tought me that what I consider to be "one-time script" always comes back for reuse. It is much easier to read Python code.

    Speed gain when written in Perl is not that much of an issue for me.

    Posted by: Babu on November 15, 2002 07:08 AM
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