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Though that question could be expanded "Why nodejs" or "Why Ruby on Rails".
Don't get me wrong, I actually like Python. It's awesome for doing development on SBC's like the rPi or the Beaglebone. But will be less awesome once .NET Core supports ARM processors (apparently it doesn't yet, from what my google-fu was able to determine yesterday.)
But Python and the rest, well, they're just not C# (or C++, but I haven't used C++ in so many years now the rust has turned into individual oxidized atoms of iron.)
What gets me is how many jobs use Python (or one of the other aforementioned) for things like web servers/services. Why? Why do I keep encountering what is often overtly expressed as a disdain for Microsoft tech? Ultimately, I guess it boils down to free, cheap, open source, etc., and probably the biggest reason, it's whatever bias the lead developer had/has when the first line of code was written. And that bias, well, I keep encountering it.
Of course I'm biased as well, and of course I think I have good reasons for my biases towards strong typed compiled languages. Still, it's disturbing, disappointing, annoying, and frustrating that I actually encounter very little adoption of Microsoft tech for contract jobs and even on site employment in my little corner of the world here in Albany NY.
What's your experience? Where are the .NET hubs of contract/employment opportunities in the US and more generally, the world?
I suppose you could say I should just get a spine and code. But for me, programming is like being in a relationship with the programming language. Its got to have good communication skills (running the app to find syntax errors is not good communication), its got to be intellectually engaging (real OOP, real functional programming, real lambda functions, etc.), its got to be good looking (Tk and their ilk is just gross for creating desktop UI's), and its got to be fun to be around (JetBrains IDE's are pretty good, but still not the Visual Studio experience, and intellisense / autocomplete with languages like Python are pretty lame) and most importantly, the number of psychological problems should be minimal (the split personalities of dynamic typing come to mind.)
Marc
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With the introduction of .NET Core, Linux support, free Visual Studio and things like SQL Server on Linux, I suspect that we will start to slowly see more of an acceptance of Microsoft in the startup world. Because Microsoft was seen as hostile to Open Source, there was a real disdain for them. Of course, it's not beyond the wit of MS to do something monstrously alienating again, and put off a whole new generation.
This space for rent
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: I suspect that we will start to slowly see more of an acceptance of Microsoft in the startup world.
I hope so!
Marc
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I hope not!
I like the ms products, but do not like the lack of choice,
realistically to support ms client base sort of stuck with ms, the alternatives are still below par.
With database we have it: oracle, mysql...
with office, well open/libre not quite good enough, same with .net dev tools, even the OS (remember this is for the client base, not my own playground - can't make computer illiterate customer go linucs, can make them use libre and have to choose Save-As choosing the file type ms [and have the document look like sh*t when they send it to someone else because there are still some rendering differences - and face it, there is NO good fully functional alternative for excel]).
Summary: ms is perfectly good, but I want realistic/viable [stupid] client acceptable options.
Sin tack ear lol
Pressing the any key may be continuate
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Marc Clifton wrote: It's awesome for doing development on SBC's like the rPi or the Beaglebone.
Dunno about you, but I prefer Mono. Already have a lot of code in C# from Windows programming, so why switch?
Marc Clifton wrote: once .NET Core supports ARM processors
Is it as mature as the Mono-environment? Does it include WinForms?
Marc Clifton wrote: Why do I keep encountering what is often overtly expressed as a disdain for Microsoft tech?
..because every hobbyist and their mother would look knowledgable if he stood next to a PC that's dead and ecxlaimed "Damn M$". It is a cult-thing, not something rational. Try arguments if you don't believe me 
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: Dunno about you, but I prefer Mono.
Quite true. I just haven't gotten around to playing with Mono on my Beaglebone.
Hmmm, that sounds rather sick and twisted. 
Marc
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I thought .net core was intended to be the successor to mono now that MS bought mono's main developer (Xamarin).
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Mono is still open source.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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so is .net core.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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You missed the point; it is not owned
Does not even sound like a fork of mono, but just an alternative. A new one at that.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Python first is REMARKABLY easy to get things done fast with. It's entirely supplanted things like perl (which breaks my heart, as a 15 year perl guy.)
It's also much faster than you think. Don't fall prey to the late 80's early 90s "but it's a scripting language" bias. Very large shops use it for some pretty high performance analytics.
Over the past 40 years I've been through pascal, C++ (still my favorite, but I can't recommend it), java, C#, a couple assemblers, various scripting languages and 3gl IDEs from the 90s. After all is said and done, not only can I get functional code written and deployed faster with python than with most anything, the code is simple and clear (unless I'm coding completely drunk.)
If you add programmer efficiency as a concern, python is just far ahead of the pack.
The anti-microsoft thing is different, but meshes with it a lot. Most of it is obnoxious foolishness. But not all of it.
Don't marry your tools. They'll all betray you at some point.
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Message Closed
modified 19-Sep-18 11:21am.
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Google is your friend.
Well...actually, no. Google is the enemy. But you know what I mean.
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It's also much faster than you think. Don't fall prey to the late 80's early 90s "but it's a scripting language" bias
Python is slow because it's hashes all the way down, not because it's a scripting language.
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You're missing my point. It's NOT slow.
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Quote: unless I'm coding completely drunk
Be realistic, how often does coding while not completely drunk actually happen?
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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I work in Python for a living. It's a cool life. Websites and web services.
(running the app to find syntax errors is not good communication),
You need a better IDE.
(real OOP, real functional programming, real lambda functions, etc.),
Python has "real OOP", and as everything is an object, "real functional programming" is also a thing.
What do you mean by "real lambda functions"? x = sorted(x, key=lambda member: member.value)...
(Tk and their ilk is just gross for creating desktop UI's),
wxPython is a fantastic wrapper over wxWidgets, a native widget C++ library.
That said, distributing Python is a pain in the neck, and it's really not what you should be doing with Python. Stick to servers, where you control the metal.
(JetBrains IDE's are pretty good, but still not the Visual Studio experience, and intellisense / autocomplete with languages like Python are pretty lame)
Have you used PTVS? It's fantastic.
the number of psychological problems should be minimal (the split personalities of dynamic typing come to mind.)
Static typing is not a strength. It's just a different way of doing things.
To more broadly answer your question; "why Python?"
It's fun. It's easy. There's a huge wealth of fantastic resources. Within 8 minutes, with a clean linux machine or even mac, I can have an immensely powerful web framework running and serving database-backed pages.
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Agreed. .NET and C# are where I've invested my 10,000 hours, but over the last year I've had the pleasure of working primarily in Python, and I love it. It is very readable, especially if you follow the "pythonic" way of doing things -- keeping it simple.
I still prefer it more for "scripty" things, because it is interpreted, but that's just my preference.
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I've not used Python but I do appreciate a full and complete answer to someone's arguments. Well done.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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Marc,
The easiest answer I have is that MSFT is too quick to throw out their old technology, and to simply stop supporting it. Most .NET developers I know have 3 versions of the IDE on their machines in order to keep some project working.
And this is not a new construct. When MSFT decided 32 bit was the way to go, they stopped improving the 16 bit C++ compiler. We had to get BC++ to compiler the 16 bit version of the same code. It seems to just be how they operate.
Don't get me started about the GUI dev changes of the last 5 years. Yes, they show more progress, but at a higher price.
On the other hand, we have 15 year old PHP, Oracle, Linux servers running (in AWS now) almost unchanged, and currently maintained (running current revs).
If I have to put something on a shop floor, with custom hardware, etc. I prefer Linux. Especially if we need 30-100 of them, and we have to consider license fees, and updates that might break things!
The support cost of windows machines used to HIDE the operating system, and simply control something is the reason, I believe, for the "bigotry". But it is not unfounded. We also ship many systems out with the development tools installed and operational. So we can tweak something locally. What would the fees be for doing that with MSFT?
Free software is much cheaper if you deliver hardware, configured, vs. a CD of compiled software.
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I feel a similar pain. We've been a MS shop for the last 25 years, but because I'm the last remaining C# dev here, and they've bought two companies with expertise only in Ruby and PHP and are combining our teams, our new CIO wants to do FOSS when we rebuild our web site(s) this year. And of course, the other devs won't even consider C# and .NET because, you know, Microsoft is the wrong religion.
To me, PHP is like stepping back 20 years into the coding nightmare of classic ASP. Ruby is better, but still feels amateurish compared to C#. The IDEs and tools do not have a professional feel and lack a lot of the functionality found in VS, the way to add features and configure things are convoluted, Linux-style, so that they can't really be defined as RAD tools, IMO. I'd prefer Python over PHP or Ruby, but that's a big no-no 'cause they want to narrow down our tech usage.
<sigh> Just eight more years until retirement.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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A few years ago I really, really, finally had to learn web technologies after spending most of my career in the *Nix, C/C++ and Informix world.
I was utterly horrified to learn that the internet is essentially cobbled together with a mish-mash of scripting languages. In some software houses its like the Wild West! In the end you have to be responsive to the job market but a little part of my programming soul died when I had to work with Perl on Apple Macs.
If you have to make the transition into a new environment like Python, then so be it. But lets not kid ourselves that it is the best thing since sliced bread. Learning a new fangled scripting language is just another obstacle to earning a living IMO.
I'd much rather the industry settle on one language and set of frameworks and make it universal. Then I can spend my time doing my job and learning to do it better, instead of having to keep back tracking over the same basic stuff over and over again. The patron saint of Software Developers should be the mercurial David Bowie forever singing "Changes". Whenever a another smart arsed dev invents a new language, just for fun and says this is cool everyone should use it, all I hear is Madonna singing "Like A Virgin".
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I received some of my baggage the other day. Including what was my computer.
The packers had wrapped it very well. A serious amount of very thick padded paper material. Then it went inside a large carton with more packaging. Then that carton went inside a wooden crate for shipment.
The computer wouldn't even turn on, so I opened it up.
Note: No visible damage to the crate, the carton, or the computer case itself.
Two of the SATA connectors on the motherboard were broken off. One SATA cable at the hard-drive end was destroyed. Another SATA cable at the motherboard-side had the motherboard-side connector stuck inside it.
What kind of g-force would be required to yank soldered-on connectors from a motherboard, and snap the connectors from the cables?
There were no loose parts inside the case. Any shear had to have come from just the weight of the SATA cables.
(Needless to say, I've ordered a new MB, RAM, and CPU, since getting an exact replacement of 5 year old tech would have cost more than just buying new tech. I won't know what else is broken until I get all that and try to turn it on. Any bets on the condition of the 6 hard drives and the GTX video card?  )
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