Comment by scorpion032 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scorpion032 | Hacker News Reader

The thing thats awesome about Python:

You get to learn about:

- Using Python to compute gravitational positions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGVBo6JJa6M

- Using Python to devise trading strategies to beat S&P 500: https://us.pycon.org/2016/schedule/presentation/1697/

- Using Python to do advance statistics: https://us.pycon.org/2016/schedule/presentation/1576/

- Using the dynamic features of Python in code real time to debug hard problems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XvAVgcbmdY

And many such diverse areas, even though you might be just toiling away to store and obtain some data in a database. Opens up horizons and makes you feel empowered.

On the other hand, some other programming communities are too obsessed with their testing frameworks and task runners.

I wish HN had less snark.

Who cares what language communities obsess over what?

Snark ruins otherwise informative posts.

If I like the sheer horse power of a BMW, would it be snark to contrast it with some other car's priorities over leather seats?

There are plenty of cars (programming languages) with varied priorities. Identifying and labelling them is very useful in context to make ones own calls.

If you had written a comment which summarized a recent BMW convention that you enjoyed and wanted to share links to interesting things discussed at the convention, and you ended it with "On the other hand, some other cars are too obsessed with <insert irrelevant opinion here>", then yeah, I would consider that snark.

If you instead say "BMW prioritizes horse power, which is why I like it better than X, which seems to prioritize <insert something else here>", then (1) your tone is much less snarky, (2) you've given context to your comment (the BMW horsepower - without that, it is much more snarky), and (3) you've opened up the thread to encourage discussion and alternative opinions, instead of shutting it down with your original tone and phrasing.

My understanding of Python and its community is that they have good solutions for basic problems and so they have the luxury of focussing on cool or esoteric stuff.

Also a lot of the power of Python comes from the extensive ecosystem, so the fact that certain domain problems are made easy in Python is itself an achievement of the language.

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