I don’t mind lots of extra typing either, because if the code is readable I save time reading/writing comments.

People new to programming assume WRITING the code is time-consuming, but thinking through the problem is typically where you’re burning the most calories. Not saving a few keystrokes.

Anyway, I agree with the above comment about PHP’s popularity due to its “www” birthright, but please don’t hate on PHP because you have a Ruby syntax fetish Too many programmers get hung up on the craft and forget the raison d’etre.

I find it increases the rate at which I can write lines of code, for this reason. That doesn’t necessarily correlate with productivity, especially long-term productivity.

In Common Lisp, for example, I can never remember all the args to with-open-file (though I can remember the couple I use all the time, and Emacs can tell me the rest). But my programs end up naturally OAOO. If I need something for a purpose other than how I coded it, I rarely have to refactor to use it. It’s already in a data structure I can use.

In Python, I can crank out the lines of code faster, but then after a month I have … a lot of lines of code. Then I have to go back and refactor, especially when I want to use something in a different way than originally intended.

I wonder if there’s a way to build a system with the best of both worlds. There’s got to be something better than Common Lisp for memorization, while keeping its benefits.

I don’t think it’s a failing of Python, it’s mostly due to my lack of using it long enough to recall the operators and methods by heart. But if that’s the case, then pretty much any language can be comfortably familiar, provided you put in the legwork to use it enough to learn it. The real question is, what language has the most memorable syntax in terms of the duration of time required to become efficient from recall only?

I can’t claim any insight into that; I learned Perl to get by in my job. 60-hour per week exposure is way more Python than I’ll ever be writing recreationally.

Still, to each his own. And you’re dead on about Java being infinitely forgettable.

Some things in ruby are brilliantly designed and very easy to pick back up, like map/select/etc block chaining. but overall it’s harder.

I am biased because I do use ruby since 5 years, have NO problem with python though – but I came from perl and php background. I found perl had too many weaknesses – the syntax was less elegant than python and ruby, and perl failed to conquer the www (which I personally think was the only reason why php really was a big success – their www focus).

Maybe perl 6 can change this one day, but for now it still seems to be a duke nukem forever story with perl, right next to GNU Hurd….

I think this is just one of many beneficial results from some of the pythonic philosophies – like one right way of doing things. Another big one is that the learning curve is so short. On one huge project I chose python and was the only one that knew it previously. Over the years we trained a dozen people in python – and it was so easy to do that there was never any formal training.

Anyhow, glad to hear someone else articulate this aspect of python.

This is a big part of what makes Python “fun” for me… I can focus on the task, and less on the tool (or language). Other languages may be more powerful/complex/expressive/etc., but I find the challenge to be in solving the problem at hand, not in adding an extra level of difficulty by using a language that is more effort by nature.

All of this is of course due to the fact that Python is not my primary language, so I am not immersed in it on a daily basis (SQL is), and Python takes (me) a little less effort to get restarted in.