Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

I don't see much point in going from one dynamic untyped language to another. Javascript and Python offer much of the same advantages and disadvantages, but having to deal with the overhead of running python code seems to just saddle it with tradeoffs for no real benefit. Learning one or the other is fairly easy too.

May as well write Javascript directly, as NPM is not short on packages if that's what you need. I see more value in going from higher level languages like ReScript, Purescript, Melange (Reasonml + Rescript compiler) to Javascript. You have to deal with things like code interop, strictness, overhead of compilation, but you at least gain in safety and succinctness.

> May as well write Javascript directly, as NPM is not short on packages if that's what you need.

I haven't heard of an equivalent of the Python scientific stack for JS, and that seems to be one of the key selling points here.

That’s a good use case, but the theme seemed to be “Python all the things!” It came across as a bit fanatical.

The advantage is obvious. People who know and/or enjoy Python can get into web dev without having to fuss with a new language. It’s really that simple.

> The advantage is obvious. People who know and/or enjoy Python can get into web dev without having to fuss with a new language. It’s really that simple.

All web API docs are written for Javascript. Knowledge and practice of Javascript is mandatory for front end development at first place.

Agreed. Even with the higher level languages that compile to JS you still need to know JS, but you also get the benefit of the stricter languages.

If that’s what you are doing then most of how you write python can be done in javascript. The languages are not too different except for superficial syntax stuff. You also inherit the problems that come with compiling and also in general the lack of web-oriented packages that javascript offers.

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