
Ask HN: What would've been Python if Python didn't exist? - KhoomeiK
What language do you think would&#x27;ve taken the place of Python as the predominant language for ML and data manipulation if Python was never invented? Would languages that aim to be &quot;Python except better&quot; like Julia still exist? Would the &quot;AI revolution&quot; have even occurred?
======
maxerickson
Lua, Ruby and Javascript all exist relatively independently of Python and have
quite similar features sets.

I wonder if numpy being fairly usable in 2005 is the bigger factor than Python
itself.

~~~
javajosh
I was about to write this (except I think Ruby was influenced by Python). Then
I deleted it, because I'm not sure what the point of the question is.

------
dunefox
I'd honestly hope that it would have been something like Common Lisp or
Ocaml... now I just hope that Julia replaces Python for ML.

------
LinuxBender
Initially, probably perl.

~~~
KhoomeiK
Yeah, I've definitely heard people say that Perl was effectively Python before
Python. I'm not sure if it could scale in terms of computational ability for
ML though.

~~~
jwalgenbach
Python doesn't really scale -- it just calls out to C code for heavy
computation and perl could do that too.

The more difficult part would be making perl easily maintainable. You can
write unmaintainable code in any language, but perl made it easier, and python
makes it (relatively) harder.

------
Khelavaster
Ruby probably would've evolved from Perl. PHP probably would've been refined
faster.

------
psv1
R - it's already good just not quite as good as Python.

------
PaulHoule
How about GNU Octave?

~~~
dunefox
As a programming language for ML? God no.

------
wprapido
Perl, Ruby, PHP

------
Spooky23
Perl

------
claudiug
ruby

