

Python is Beautiful - googletron
http://www.mahdiyusuf.com/post/22036016858/python-is-beautiful

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btipling
I am a Python and JavaScript developer myself, recently getting into Go, but I
took a look at Ruby not too long ago and was really impressed how beautiful
Ruby code looked. I do not really have a reason to use Ruby, I feel like
Python and JavaScript+node.js satisfy my scripting needs, but I wonder why
Python seems to be so popular given how nice Ruby seemed. Just came around a
little too late?

~~~
Peaker
I remember trying Ruby out years ago and being turned off by a REPL I couldn't
understand (Python's REPL was excellent) and a lot of Perlisms in the syntax
(e.g: sigil support, regexps built-into syntax). Going back from indentation
based syntax was also a minus.

More recently, when I looked at Ruby, I was somewhat turned off by the use of
code blocks as a building block, rather than lexically scoped functions. I
find functions simpler to compose and reason about than code-blocks, and found
it peculiar that functions were expressed on top of blocks.

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googletron
There are a few more that a believed to be using Python in the backend Path
and Turntable.fm

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bmelton
I'd have loved to see a link to the original allegation.

This is one of those nonsense things to me, as there is really very little
tying the backend programming language to the presentation layer, except at
the bottom, where people are still using the generic Django stylesheets and
the like.

In short, that Instagram is pretty has nothing to do with it having been built
in Python. It could even be that pretty if it were built in C, or Java, or
even (gasp) ASP Classic.

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googletron
This is exactly what I am trying to get at with the post; for him to say
python applications are ugly is ridiculous. <http://grokcode.com/746/dear-
python-why-are-you-so-ugly/>

~~~
bmelton
I get it, but it feels like fighting nonsense with more nonsense though.

Regardless, while I'll grant that most of his assertions are at least true as
presented, some of those are questionable - specifically, and maybe I'm the
outlier, but I've always thought that the Heroku page was downright ugly, and
I much prefer the AppEngine homepage.

~~~
googletron
Well the point is to combat the ideal that python applications are ugly. It
may be nonsense but that isn't a prequisite in forming opinions in people's
minds.

~~~
bmelton
That, I 100% understand. I didn't mean to imply that somebody didn't need to
respond, it just makes me sad that somebody did have to.

