

Why Python is Powerful Enough for Google - mikeyanderson
https://www.codefellows.org/blogs/5-reasons-why-python-is-powerful-enough-for-google

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examancer
Not a lot of meat to this article. "Ra ra, python" with no real comparison to
anything else. You could rewrite the article for Ruby or javascript and you'd
really just be changing the names of the tools/libraries, the points could
remain the same.

Generators? Hello Enumerators in Ruby and using simple callbacks in node.

Speed? Hello V8 for JS. Hello vast speed improvements in MRI, C extensions, or
leaning on the speed of the JVM for Ruby/JRuby.

Broad? Javascript is probably the most widely deployed language on the planet,
and by many measures the most used. Ruby trails JS, and maybe Python too, but
its still plenty popular. Not to mention the depth of libraries for both is
pretty stunning.

Javascript is not javascript, ruby is not ruby. There are a number of vastly
different and wildly popular JS implementations, and embedding JS in other
applications is plenty common. Ruby has MRI (CRuby), Rubinius, JRuby (which is
much more active than Jython), mruby (embedded ruby), and opal for compiling
ruby into JS, not to mention the heavy ruby influences on CoffeeScript and
Sugar.js.

The articles points are all valid, but none of them really demonstrate that
Python is the answer to the article's thesis question: "You are looking for a
job, which language should you learn?"

That said, Python is great. I like Python. Just not a big fan of poorly argued
fan boy articles.

------
pathikrit
I work at Google. Most of production code is C++/Java. Python is used for
scripts, testing frameworks/test harnesses, internal tools like code review
and bugs etc.

------
skybrian
The decision to make Python an officially supported language inside Google was
made a long time ago. It's anyone's guess whether they'd make the same
decision today. If Go were around, perhaps they'd have chosen that instead?

------
aioprisan
Google uses dozens of different languages in the services they offer. Heck,
they even built a few languages themselves, like Go and Dart. Go is definitely
used in production as well
[http://golang.org/doc/faq#Is_Google_using_go_internally](http://golang.org/doc/faq#Is_Google_using_go_internally).
Is there any data to suggest that Google writes a non-negligible number of
apps in Python vs the dozens or so of other languages? I'm curious.

~~~
e12e
They did start out their compute cloud [edit: I mean appengine] with python,
and I _think_ they started out offering mercurial hosting first on
code.google.com? And they famously employ Guido. I also seem to recall
something about reimplementing git in python for code.google.com, but I could
be mistaken.

[edit2: According to [http://google-
styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/pyguide.ht...](http://google-
styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/pyguide.html) "Python is the main
scripting language used at Google."]

~~~
jordonwii
> they famously employ Guido

"Employed", it appears:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum#Dropbox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum#Dropbox)

I only just discovered this recently.

------
Bhel
I like how they use a huge picture of a snake for the article, even when
Python isn't named after the animal, but Monty Python.

More on topic: Even when Python is one of my favorite languages, this article
is plain horrible. Biased, and without any sort of point to compare it to.

Python is great for many tasks, but it's just retarded to pretend that it's
the best tool to go for everything.

~~~
runjake
If the snake motif is good enough for the official Python website, it's
probably good enough for this article.

------
pydanny
I like this article because some notes I took at Walt Disney Animation Studios
is referenced.

Yes, today it's all about me :-)

------
gmontard
I agree with examancer, you could put Ruby in all your article and it's not
going to change anything...

------
slowdown
This is the author's prejudiced opinion spun into an article. I could write
the exact same thing for Ruby, Javascript, etc. PLus, if you are starting a
company, the last thing that should matter is your tech stack. The first thing
that should matter is your sales strategy.

------
marcell
As far as I can tell, the author does not work for Google, and moreover the
article makes no mention of Google aside from the headline.

~~~
mikeyanderson
Here's a good conversation on it:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2560310/heavy-usage-of-
py...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2560310/heavy-usage-of-python-at-
google)

------
snakebit
FWIW, I'm pretty sure that's a picture of a Boa. So much for attention to
detail.

~~~
eappell
Yep, that's a picture of a Dumeril's Boa. Not even in the python family...

------
vezzy-fnord
I'm not against Python by any means. I like it and I use it fairly often.

However this article is very unconvincing.

The arguments summed up in order are basically:

* Python has generators.

* Python interpreters are getting faster.

* Argument from popularity.

* Holy shit, guys! Did you know that CPython isn't the _only_ Python implementation, and that there's a difference between language specification and implementation? Mind = blown, amirite?

* It's so easy... scientists and mathematicians can use it? (Not to say that Python isn't easy, but to make it out like it'd be so impressive for a hard scientist to pick up programming is silly.)

------
porter
What does google actually use python for? Certainly not everything...

~~~
outside1234
Google uses python for non production facing scripts. Everything production
facing is C++ or Java.

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
I thought Youtube was built in Python, is that not true anymore?

