
Ask HN: Why is Python popularity rising? - galfarragem
The other day I saw a chart where Python popularity seems to be rising a lot. Is it because of machine learning?<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insights.stackoverflow.com&#x2F;trends?tags=python%2Cjavascript
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joeclark77
It's easy for beginners to learn programming, and it doesn't necessarily ever
reach a performance bottleneck where you outgrow it and need something
different. Python has libraries for practically everything, so you can use it
for everything from coding a web app, to automating server administration
tasks, to statistical analyis and data graphics, to orchestrating a MapReduce
job on a cluster, so you also never really come to a task that forces you to
choose a new language.

Therefore, even if other languages _are_ better for certain tasks, the Python
programmer is rarely ever forced to go looking for them.

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jotux
Seems like python became popular as a teaching language in the last few years
[1] and now we're seeing the results of that.

[1] [https://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/176450-python-is-now-
th...](https://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/176450-python-is-now-the-most-
popular-introductory-teaching-language-at-top-u-s-universities/fulltext)

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aprdm
Why wouldn't it be rising?

From my perspective, I used to work with embedded systems and we used python
from ARM processors to automating tests of embedded systems.

Now I use it to build microservices, to do machine learning... It seems that
it's used from A to Z.

Python 3.x has interesting features regarding async io which some say perform
better than node.

It's a solid proven language.

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CarolineW
It has its wrinkles, absolutely, but in general it's clean, consistent, and
even beginners tend to write code that's clear.

There's very little syntactic noise, very few mysterious incantations, the
easy is easy, the difficult isn't so bad, and it stays out of the way of the
expert and just lets you get on with it.

You can program in OO style, FP style, and where it's appropriate, imperative
style. It comes with libraries that cover almost everything you need (although
that's where many, _many_ wrinkles can be found).

And when you need speed, it plays nicely with other languages, is easily
extended, and can be compiled to run on the metal.

Yes, it has its problems, but the above list is why Python is my "go to"
language for play, experiments, and in some cases, deployable packages.

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proussea
Imo because "It’s more important to get stuff done than to make it go fast."

[https://hackernoon.com/yes-python-is-slow-and-i-dont-
care-13...](https://hackernoon.com/yes-python-is-slow-and-i-dont-
care-13763980b5a1)

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fiedzia
Machine learning and programming education in general.

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ern0
It seems very tiny issue, but what I can write 5 lines in other languages
(from PHP to CPP), it's only 2 lines in Python. I am writing my tools in
Python, and there are lot of 1-line methods.

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almostkorean
I just attended Pycon and the keynote was about why Python is an effective
tool for science. I recommend watching the video, Jake is an astronomer and
gave a great presentation:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyjCqQEUa8o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyjCqQEUa8o)

His four main points were (I'm stealing this directly from his slides):

1\. Interoperability with other languages

2\. "Batteries Included" \+ third-party modules

3\. Simplicity and dynamic nature

4\. Open ethos well-fit to science

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insulanian
Besides simplicity, IMO being opinionated matters a lot. People don't like
choices when starting to learn the language.

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smt88
It's increasing use in science/statistics is probably helpful. I know data
scientists, lab scientists, an economist, and people in finance who only know
Python and haven't considered learning anything else (including R).

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adamb_
I heard a lot of computer science departments started picking it as the
introductory programming language a few years ago.

