Ask HN: What made you learn Python? - skies
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geebee
Working with scientific researchers and data analysts.

I was a big fan of ruby, and doing web development, so the pressure was on to
learn javascript, which I really wasn't enjoying. Only partly the language,
mainly the framework churn.

I was a math major and industrial engineering grad student and did a lot of
analytical code in a previous life (numerical recipes in C kind of thing, as
well as Java interfacing with ILOG/CPLEX). So I managed to get over to that
side of life again.

Ruby isn't big in the scientific computing world, but python is pleasant to
work with. The whole thing is a better match for me, kind of glad to be out of
web development.

That said, it does limit employment options somewhat. There's enough activity
in python/analytics/data science to provide some options, but it's also very
popular (a lot of people really want to do ML/AI stuff, so the competition is
high). If you really have the front end/full stack javascript thing nailed, my
guess is that jobs are very easy to come by

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doobee
I work in the aerospace industry as an embedded software engineer. There are a
great deal of engineers in the department that use Ruby over Python (long
story so please don't ask). However, I find that Python shines in it's
community of contributors and users. There are tons of free online
documentation, resources, forums, tutorials and even free courses.

Other than the above, my mentors have stressed the advantages of automating my
tasks now rather than later. This was the main drive in getting on board with
learning a scripting language quite quickly. I initially tried Ruby and it
didn't seem like a language an embedded software engineer should be using
"daily" over the alternative (the language I wanted to learn in first place)
being python. I'm sure someone has an alternative opinion on that. Another
main contributor at the time was the amount of time I spent scp'n files back
and forth between two hosts. There's an awesome python library called paramiko
that solved all the annoyances with doing this manually. Cheers~D

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TurboHaskal
The team hated Perl in an almost religious fashion (although they never worked
with nor bothered to learn it) so we settled with Python. I must say the ones
pushing for it weren't exactly our best programmers.

Note that I didn't have to "learn" Python. It brought nothing to the table
other than a different syntax and concepts such as generators, iterators,
metaclasses and list comprehensions were not new to me.

Fast forward a few years and while I admit that it probably has the best
ecosystem a dynamic language has to offer, I still don't see the point of
Python language-wise (disclaimer: I don't factor in implementations and
ecosystems when talking about programming languages).

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thewileyone
Worked in a team that developed it's own tools for NeXTStep (yeah, that long
ago) ...

Glen joined the team and holy shit Glen was awesome. Was scripting in PERL
with ObjectiveC bindings until Glen looked over my shoulder and told me that
was crap. So he wrote Python bindings for ObjectiveC over the weekend and made
me learn Python.

Can't remember the version, but the only support came from Guido Van Rossum
via email so that was a magical time.

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NotQuantum
In high school I wanted to make a Twitter bot that tweeted about the weather
everyday. I had an easy time with Python's Libraries / Ecosystem.

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yesenadam
I downloaded Sage, and Sage uses it. I was getting into solving mathematical
problems by setting them in the appropriate number system - like finding the
perfect data structure for a problem, so the answer drops out. Then realized
Cython is a zillion times faster (took a while to learn how to get it to run
at full speed) and now use that for everything.

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pinewurst
My boss made me. I'm glad he did, though.

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vram22
I was working on Java at the time. While browsing tech sites, I came across
Python. I think there was a good description of it as a VHLL, including the
usual term "executable pseudocode"; also, there was a good online tutorial
about Internet programming with Python, and I was new to both. Got hooked, and
never looked back.

~~~
vram22
Forgot to mention: I came for the language, and stayed for the community.

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rzzzwilson
I noticed python in the very early 2000s and my reaction was pretty much like
that of ESR [0]:

1\. Significant whitespace!? Eeeew!

2\. Pause, measured in a month or so.

3\. Hm, code gets written quickly and usually works...

4\. Finished problem solver that eluded me in C.

5\. SOLD!

[0]
[https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3882](https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3882)

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fitba1969
Used to use MATLAB for all data processing. Python was free and seemed to be
gaining popularity. One day for analysing some data just decided let's see if
I can do this in Python. Went from zero to a fully functioning script with
many features in a few hours. I was hooked.

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sethammons
Had to for work. I switched from a PHP team to a Python and Perl team. I
vastly preferred Python. Later, I worked to introduce Go at work and now
nearly all legacy services are Go. Now I only use Python for little quick
scripts.

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billconan
Have to use deep learning framework.

The official language for some Stanford/online courses, no choice.

Need to write some scripts that don’t need extra dependencies on Linux and
Mac. And shell is too difficult.

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dhruvkar
I wanted to get SMS notifications from a constantly updated Google
spreadsheet.

Simplest way to work it and an SMS api was using Python.

~~~
paulcole
I use Google Apps Script and Twilio for something pretty similar.

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frou_dh
It's the only way to write plugins for Sublime Text. That aside, I would not
choose to use it.

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lastofus
It was much nicer than Perl in that I could actually read and understand code
I wrote 6+ months back.

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nvusuvu
Desire to automate manual processes that take our team months to complete
otherwise.

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DrNuke
Not good enough with C and C++, bored with VB for Excel and lua.

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cimmanom
Tried the Django tutorial and loved the framework.

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cgi-joe
Using Blender

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tmaly
back in the day, it ran better on windows before we had strawberry Perl.

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laurentl
This comic: [https://xkcd.com/353/](https://xkcd.com/353/)

The alt-text of the comic hints at project Euler, which is another
extraordinary rabbit-hole xkcd got me into.

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doobee
easy to learn, wide support, great community, fast development

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pritambarhate
Data science and ML.

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eggie5
all the good ML tools are in python

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k0t0n0
hobby

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detaro
highschool

~~~
m0ck
When was this? I graduated highschool only 2 years ago and all through it they
forced us to use Delphi, because the old teachers didn't know anything else.
At least I learnt Java in my spare time back then.

~~~
detaro
2006, but my highschool was really early in Germany with this (and e.g. we
weren't allowed to use Python in our exit exams years later, since it hadn't
been approved yet)

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gatosufridor
Why not Ruby?

~~~
dragonwriter
The two aren't mutually exclusive.

