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Comment by douche | Hacker News Reader

I have fond memories of using Python 8-10 years ago, but looking at it today, I'm not sure I see compelling reasons not to just use C# instead.

I can have real static typing if I want it. I can also have dynamic typing if I want that. I can use lambda functions. I have LINQ. I can use ScriptCS or some of the new Roslyn stuff if I want to use it as a scripting language. Unix support is not as great, but they are coming along with that. There's no GIL.

Is there some killer feature for Python that I'm overlooking?

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Still less boilerplate than C#.

Still on average more concise to express the same idea.

Standard library is a nice mix of function-based vs. class-based solutions where appropriate, rather than forcing OO on you even when it's not the ideal approach.

Cross-platform C# usage is still not even a reality, let alone as good as what Python already has.

In several domains of programming, Python has best-of-breed, and sometimes just flat-out the best, available libraries.

I think its ubiquity is important (installed by default on most non-Windows machines, at least in my experience) combined with the simplicity of running a python script.

Now that Microsoft is supporting non-Windows with .Net core, C# is more attractive. That said, if I was thinking compiled Python with static typing my mind would go to Go.

Lots of options!

The only domains python and C# really overlap is web with ASP.NET and Python web frameworks - and here portability used to be the determining factor.

Python use cases are completely different from C# - Python is all about fast iteration and prototyping, REPL, interfacing to native libraries etc.

C# is about static typing and all that it implies.

F# is slightly closer to Python with REPL and type inference but still on the C# side of spectrum.

Compared to C#, it doesn't require you to run Windows in production.

C# doesn't require you to run Windows in production, even before .NET was open-sourced. Mono works well for a lot of use cases.

Mono performance was at least an order of magnitude worse than MS .Net. At least before the open sourcing of .Net.

Nim has much easier syntax than C#, why not that instead, has better type inference than C# too. Pythonesque in its core.

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