What is Python useful for?
>>51427641
nobody knows yet. scientists are still investigating
>>51427641
science I'd guess
>>51427641
Scripting / webscraping.
Perl for people who can't deal with Perl's eccentricities.
everything relevant
>>51427641
If Python was a book it would be called "Learning to code: for retards."
I hope this answers your question.
>>51427737
Honestly wasn't expecting much more than this as a response. Pretty much answers the question.
>>51427641
Its good for cute little scripts. I think some of Plex's API are written in Python
>>51427737
>implying
>>51427641
Python is a very simple and easy language to learn. It has the vbest libraries (pieces of premade code you can just call to avoid having to reinvent the wheel eveytime). That makes a very good language to begginers and auxiliar pieces of code.
But it is very slow and because of how much it holds the hand of the programmer. And this lack of eficiency makes C programmmers dislike it.
People-hours are the most expensive thing there is. For most cases, an easy to use language is worth almost any minor performance hit you take.
I know visual basic. Should I move to python next?
>inb4 why vb
It's what are uni uses for intro programming.
>>51427641
>High level API scripting
I met a guy who couldn't into the old for-loop. He just kept asking "where's the iterator?"
Making visual novels with Ren'Py.
I think it was invented for the self esteem of mech engineers. They take the introduction python course and brag with their nonexistent programming skillz...
>>51427641
Python is rapidly growing in popularity among the scientific community (specifically physics).
>>51427641
Embedded devices
I use to know somebody who used it for something having to do with satellite telescopes.
>>51427979
At my school all engineers are required to learn C++
>>51427940
Do they teach English too?
>>51428013
Our*. My fault. I'm trying to type faster because I don't want normies to see me on 4chan.
>>51427940
Just go to a C based language. Its widely used and translates well to other languages.
>>51428007
I didn't know about that, they teach only python over here just cuz it has all the basic understanding of programming and easy af to learn.
>>51427641
Industry wise, it is used for making a quick mock-up program.
Python exists so that idiots can feel like programmers. Plus, it is useful for simple, one-off tasks.
I'm unsure if anyone here has actually been a professional developer. The fact that something is "easy" makes it a good language. The performance decrease is negligible on todays hardware. Especially when compared with how much it increases productivity. A large project quickly because complex on its own without a language getting in the way.
C is not difficult to understand as a language either, its just much harder to manage. The feature set for C you would be able to learn more quickly than with another language. The problem is that it makes you deal with things that higher level languages have abstracted because its a common feature that you most likely would need anyways.
The only time I would use C is if 1.) the environment I am using requires it (like an NSS module) or if I am doing something seriously intensive that takes at least 10 minutes or more to achieve.
>>51427903
This'ing this.
Python will be considered depricated to Go within 5 years
We use Python for Physics Simulation in my undergrad course, I was going to keep working on it in my own time to get as good as I can. Should I learn a different language?
>>51427641
stitching together random systems so they can inter-operate, which is a lot of what computing is
>>51428600
Learn C++. People usually use something like C/ C++ or Fortran for the compute intensive parts in bigger simulations. C(++) has applications outside physics though.
>>51427940
Jesus Christ m8, I learnt vb and py in yr11
>>51427641
screen scraping
>>51428787
That's cool. I didn't get into it until now.
Writing small pentest tools.
programing, mostly
everything python can do, node.js can do better
>>51428069
python is a c based language you autist
>>51431156
I think he means C/C++/C#/Objective-C
but his not knowing that Python is conceptually C-like (to say nothing of the fact that CPython is written in C) says a lot about how stupid he is, so your point is valid.
>>51431156
>>51431182
So python it is then? Thanks.
>>51428069
>>51431182
Um, what widely used language today isn't C-based?
GIS
Python in useful in information security field too
>>51431534
Oh sweet. That's my area of interest and I'm learning Python right now.
>>51431495
Depending on your definition for "widely used", Erlang, Haskell, uh... maybe prolog, if you consider academic uses.
Alternatively, none. But Python arguably falls closer in line with C than other languages.
>>51427866
>And this lack of eficiency makes C programmmers dislike it.
Funny, I usually use C and Python together to get the best of both worlds.
>>51431583
That's because you're probably a reasonable person who uses programming languages as tools to get a job done, and not an insane zealot with an axe to grind.
Python is useful for quickly tapping out concepts.
It's great for simple programs when you are not very concerned with performance or efficiency.
Student programmers and scientists love it.
I think Go is quickly eating its lunch.
Web backends for people who hate ruby and think *js is a meme.
>>51428501
>The performance decrease is negligible on todays hardware.
And this is why modern day "programmers" are fucking shit
>>51427847
retard detected
>>51428787
wow you learned python in yr11??? How did you do it?
>>51428501
These fags can't fizzbuzz, but they know python is for normies so they gotta hate.
>>51427903
Can you quantify this? Exactly how many fewer man-hours does it take to write some program X using Python as opposed to using any other programming language N?
Oh, what's that? You have no quantifiable data? Then fuck off.
You know what is quantifiable? Electricity and run-times for programs. Guess what? Python fucking sucks by those measures compared to C, C++, C#, Java, Go, Haskell, and Rust.
>>51427708
this
it's just dumbed down perl
>>51431607
Get out of /g/, you aren't allowed back until you start calling Haskell a meme and hating every language with a garbage collector
>>51427708
>Perl for people who can't deal with Perl's eccentricities.
>>51432032
THIS FUCKING THIS FUCKING THIS!
BURN THE HERETIC!
But seriously, >>51431607 perhaps you should also look into Rust. It's pretty great in all the things that C is and more.
>>51432063
(not >>51431607)
I used to think Rust was sweet when it first came out but now I'm not so sure :/
I'd rather use something like Haskell if I wanted polymorphism, and C if I wanted bare metal speed. Esp. considering I've seen Rust rank pretty slowly in benchmarks, which is unsettling considering its memory model is supposed to be efficient
This bread smell unemployment
>>51427641
Web Crawling
>>51432328
What.
>>51431984
Only vb was part of the actual IT curriculum. I learn some basics of python just to make an epig ddos script that crashed the other kids' LAN messenger clients by spamming broken packets.
>>51428787
Hes right you know.
Year 12 myself (18 so no b&) and I learned vb last year and java this year.
>>51432121
Rust is still in its early days, and there's not much (apart from the Trait system) preventing optimisations being made that will make it match C/C++ speeds.
That said, I believe in making judgments in the here and now, so for now there's not that many reasons to use Rust besides the type safety. I do feel positive about Rust's future, though.
>>51429976
>nödé.js
>better
>>51429976
Do you mean javascript?
comparing a language to a framework is dumb. don't be dumb.
>>51429976
NodeJS has potential to be better because it's essentially starting from scratch, allowing developers to learn from mistakes of the past. But to suggest it's currently better than Python is nonsense. Python using PyPy will match or significantly beat NodeJS performance and memory-wise in most relevant circumstances.
>>51434138
Swedish anon spotted
>>51427987
I'll take almost anything over FORTRAN.
I absolutely hate how hard it is to debug python. Shit just silently breaks and you have no idea what causes it and the error messages that there are are little help. Why can't the world at large use a nice safe language like Ada?
>>51427641
Data engineer in NLP and IR here. Python all day every day. All are tools are python, extensive libraries written in python. Get on my level codemonkeys.
Do you fags know that blender was almost entirely written in python and it is one of the best 3d modelling tools out there
>>51427683
>A whole language for webscraping.
Please just get the fuck out and get an education.
>>51427940
Learn English next.
>>51427966
>conflates unwillingness to use an outdated pattern with inability
The only correct answer is that python is a general purpose language. It's good for rapid application development for non-embedded platforms.
It's used in the scientific community because of NumPy and related libraries, but that's just a perk. What Python is really good for is prototyping, and this is due to its simplicity. It is very easy to get something right the first time in Python, and this allows your team to work faster.
Python isn't only for idiots, although it's great that it enables them to program and creates competition for charlatans who couldn't hack themselves out of a paper bag, who suddenly become worried that they aren't so one three three seven. No, python usage can be very advanced, and metaprogramming can look idiomatic if you know what you're doing. Closure and other niceties of a functional programming style are also available to you and easy to use.
All in all, treat Python as a good tool to use if speed is not of the essence. Python will never be fast, as Guido prioritizes accessibility over features that would speed up the interpreter but would make the language a bit more arcane.
>>51427979
>skillz
The Google Search prototype was written in Python.
>>51434418
>Do you fags know that blender was almost entirely written in python and it is one of the best 3d modelling tools out there
It's impossible to know this because it's false, unless they were writing python scripts that emit C++.
>>51434418
>blender was almost entirely written in python
Yeah, they almost went down that route, but then decided C++ would be better.
>>51432462
>year 12
>18 years old
How, I was 17 when I finished year 13.
>>51427641
People who arent programmers who need to program.
>>51434511
This.
Python trumps other languages even very high level ones on productivity front especially the code you are writing is not performance intensive. It has a wide variety of modern and useful libraries including things like NumPy/SciPy that some other hipster language simply cannot offer any competition to.
For mundane things like text IO/string processing/parsing/interfacing it's also just "good enough".
>>51434570
>How
If you really must know, this is accomplished by having your 18th birthday occur while enrolled in year 12.
>>51434591
Erratum: Your 18th birthday can occur up to 1 year before your first day of year 12 class, and the condition may be true for any given day of the academic year.
If we count all birthdays as occurring at midnight, then make that (1 year - 1 day).
>>51431639
Lol this guy. Developers are shit because they dont care about the difference between 10 and 100 milliseconds for completion. Alright then. I bet its going to hurt when you get your first job
>>51432023
Not him but take a rest api for instance. Tell me that would be as quick on c. If you want actual time i dont have the data, probably because it seems obvious to everyone else. If you think it is worth the time i think you should try to pitch the idea to companies. If true, i dont know why you wouldnt want to do it
>>51435636
To be clear the time saved i am say is man hours. The time to completion is program execution time
Python is useful for learning new things quickly without all the trivialities. You can make small and simple programs with it. When you want efficiency, you rewrite your Python code in C after you understand exactly what you want it to do. Then you aren't sitting there checking for segfaults and other shit because python already warned you about your shit.
>>51434360
that's french script pêh
>>51427641
I'm mainly a JAVA programmer because of my degree, but I find Python to be a nifty little tool to tackle smaller problems and to help with projects. I am unsure of its industrial use though. Maybe a fellow /g/er could enlighten us?
>>51427641
Python will be obsolete within the next 5 years so it doesn't matter.
>>51436267
5 year is pretty long in the world of technology
>>51436267
Python's been around for about 25 years. I find it unlikely that a language with as much momentum as Python could fall out of favor that quickly. Have any languages gone from top 5 to dead (or "obsolete") in as few as 5 years?
>>51436357
Perl
>>51437400
Perl is still in the top 15. It's a few ranks behind Ruby. Maybe you'd call it obsolete, but I'd hardly call it dead.
>>51437422
the top 15 is too big a range
it tapers off so much past the very top few
ruby is also effectively obsolete, in that im not sure anyone would start a new project in ruby unless they were some kind of ruby specialist with a lot of investment in it
>>51437470
Ruby's not that unreasonable a language to use for a web project. I admit I would probably use JavaScript (NodeJS), but I bet you could find a job as a Ruby developer.
Why python and not ruby?
>>51432026
>dumbed down
You misspelled better. There is nothing "dumber" about it, it's just not as poorly designed.
>>51434511
Kill yourself
>>51437777
waste of quads
>>51434384
do you have a background in linguistics?
pls tell me more about what u do in NLP :) genuinely interested
>>51438356
Not him but probably referring to NLTK
>>51427641
Scientific computing
Number crunching
Plotting statistics
That's at least what I used it for in my masters.
>>51435887
You were right for a while and then it all just sort of nosedived.
>When you want efficiency, you rewrite your Python code in C
Yep, I'll just rewrite my Python HTTP fiddler in C so it can be more efficient. That shouldn't take more than a few years.
>>51434165
>node.js
>framework
kek
>>51428787
>>51432462
in y12 they asked us if we wanted to do c++ or java
>>51432023
If you're hiring 10 grad students for PhD positions at your science company it's far more efficient to have them learn python for 3 months and then do science and make simple scripts for the remaining four years. If you have to teach them C first you'll have them 'learning to code' for half their PhD. Expecially if they won't be doing big data anyways and they can run scripts overnight.
Different languages have different places in the world of programming you autist.
>>51427641
it's a general-purpose language but in my experience all scientists use it
i've used it for
* data visualisation
* data analysis
* math
* x-ray crystallography
* classical and quantum random walks
* optics and colour science
* image analysis
* modelling of biomolecules
hope this answers your question
>>51428600
for the simulations i've done, all of the number crunching stuff has been c++ and python has been used for everything else. keep learning python but pick up c++ as well if you really want to do simulations.
A better question would be to ask what it's not useful for.
>>51438950
making games, which is all /g/ cares about ;)
Python is good for when I do my homework in a course like Algorithms 2, I want to write down the Algorithms without the least amount of code and without having to think about classes and shit like that.
It took me less than 15 lines to write a DP program in python.
>>51427641
Python is great for doing quick little one line scripts. I used it to do calculus homework the other day. Didn't even write a program, just used the interpreter to do all the Riemann sums and other tedious shit I didn't want to do myself.
>>51438962
There's always pygame and the opengl bindings :^)
>>51439032
pygame sucks ;(
>>51438962
python is all over renpy tho
>>51439048
Then you could use python to do scripting in that blender game engine
>>51427940
>uni
>vb
>>51427641
fizz bizz
