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Comment by Lyngbakr | Hacker News Reader

I think one reason for Python growing popularity is because it's become the default tool in some domains whether it is the best tool or not.

This week our Director ordered a total rewrite of two years of work in Python. His rationale: it's what everyone else uses in this space. No reason specific to our use case, just simply to follow the herd. I realise that a large community translates into easy hiring and rich ecosystems, but I despise the mentality as it promotes a monoculture.

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... and Python _became_ the default tool because the de facto developer consensus (after years of competing languages) is that an interpreted language should

    = be usable, and 

    = provide a set of data structures that an educated programmer *expects to find when scripting*.

Python literally sucked less than the alternatives.

Python gets introduced to students, so for many people it's the first language they learn. Half the programming community have less than 5 years of experience. I question their ability to evaluate suckage, lol.

That's a terrible idea for so many reasons

What are you rewriting from? At director level focus is usually more on things like how easy is it to staff / get support for something. Python is strong here - you can find programmers globally who can do pretty well with it.

Can you say the same about your solution?

If Python was a market, this would clearly be the top.

There was a time when all you had to learn was Java or C++ or (language or tool here). Somehow, this time when we standardize, it will be different.

It's really funny that one of the subheadings under "Why is Python so popular?" is "It has high corporate demand."

That's a perfectly relevant thing, no?

Yes. The entire reason I like using Java at my day job is that the rest of the company uses it the most and supports it well. I would never use Java on my own, but that's a different situation.

It reads as a little bit of a tautology. "People are using it because people use it". I get that from a hireability standpoint it's a real thing to consider, but the statement doesn't say anything about whether or not Python is actually a good language to use

Another counterpoint to this. Rust is a popular language (debatable claim, of course) but it's not high in corporate demand.

> This week our Director ordered a total rewrite of two years of work in Python

WTF? Unless your system is originally written in a proprietary language that literally no one outside your company knows, I'll say it's a good sign that you need to change team (or change job). Don't work under a director like that.

Agreed. Coincidentally, I resigned the day before this was announced.

Sorry if it sounds too cynical, but that's probably the intended effect of a rewrite from what the team knows into Python: staffing changes. A bunch of the (expensive) old guard will leave and they can be replaced with cheap grads, who all know Python.

Better luck with the next one!

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