Should I teach myself Python

[Talk merit]

Having spent most of my early days programming in basic assembly language, I still have a slight mistrust of "high level languages". However, I realise that computing has become so sophisticated now, and one needs to support a wide variety of platforms. I'm going to need to write a couple of programs for some upcoming projects, and I'm not sure that PHP is the best solution. I've been downloading the free eBooks from PackT, and I notice that many of them are guides for Python, and include books for specialist topics. I haven't started to read them yet, as I wanted to make a decision on the best language to start my experiments.

Do any of you guys use Python, and what do you think of it?

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[TheArchaeologist]

Do any of you guys use Python, and what do you think of it?

I do. I personally like that a lot of things are intuitive in Python. There's also a ton of libraries available so a lot of times you can use one of them and don't have to reinvent the wheel Keep in mind Python is a scripting language which means you won't have to compile your code before it can run. This also means when you are looking for cutting-edge performance it might not be the best choice. So it all depends on what you want to accomplish with your upcoming projects if Python is a viable option.

[mocacinno]

Having spent most of my early days programming in basic assembly language, I still have a slight mistrust of "high level languages". However, I realise that computing has become so sophisticated now, and one needs to support a wide variety of platforms. I'm going to need to write a couple of programs for some upcoming projects, and I'm not sure that PHP is the best solution. I've been downloading the free eBooks from PackT, and I notice that many of them are guides for Python, and include books for specialist topics. I haven't started to read them yet, as I wanted to make a decision on the best language to start my experiments.

Do any of you guys use Python, and what do you think of it?

I use python all the time, both for hobby projects, crypto projects and my IRL job.
Like  TheArchaeologist already said: there are tons of libraries available, even for crypto related projects, making your life a lot easyer

[Jet Cash]

I've been collecting eBooks from PackT publishing, and the latest free book is Scientific Computing with Python 3. They have a daily free book, and several of them are Python related, that's what stimulated my interest. If you want today's free book you've only got 7 hours to grab it, but they do cycle through the list, so it will turn up again. If you download it, don't forget to get the code file as well.

https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning

[byteball]

Python is ubiquitous, used in many problem domains, has a lot of libraries but also has a principle "there should be one, and preferably only one way to do X".
It was the first language that I could write without knowing much about syntax, and was getting many things right from first attempt.
For other languages, I had to study formal rules thoroughly to be efficient in them.

[Jet Cash]

So it seems that Python could be good choice if one wants to ad a bit of surfer interaction to a site.

[katelynsk]

I have just started learning this language, but I definitely like it. It has many use cases and huge potential, in particular, in machine learning. Maybe this is the main reason of its high popularity now. In addition, Python has a low entry threshold, it provides many libraries and has a great community. Many things on Python are intuitive even to beginners. However, this is all individually. I think you should try it for yourself to be sure.

[Hexah]

I've been collecting eBooks from PackT publishing, and the latest free book is Scientific Computing with Python 3. They have a daily free book, and several of them are Python related, that's what stimulated my interest. If you want today's free book you've only got 7 hours to grab it, but they do cycle through the list, so it will turn up again. If you download it, don't forget to get the code file as well.

https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning

I never heard of this one before but I do guess it is a nice collection for my learning on the language. Thanks !teJ

[Jet Cash]

I have just started learning this language, but I definitely like it. It has many use cases and huge potential, in particular, in machine learning.

Get in quickly - today's free PackT eBook is about Python machine learning. You have only got a few hours to grab it though.

[theymos]

About 60% of my university courses used Python, 30% used Java, and 10% used others. Because NumPy has become very common in university mathematics departments, Python is especially common in the areas where computer science and mathematics intersect most strongly, such as in machine learning.

I enjoy Python. It is both very high-level and very free-form. It's vaguely reminiscent of writing assembly, since you're largely free to do whatever you want, and there are a lot of conventions rather than strict rules. (Though Python is very high-level, of course.) Its freedom and imperative style make it good for doing things quickly, but it's also easy to make a mess.

For some reason the Python culture is annoyingly pretentious, though that seems to have nothing to do with the actual language. Like many modern very-high-level languages, Python encourages people to import tons of third-party libraries without looking at them, and with hardly any vetting; I don't like that at all.

[joniboini]

Get in quickly - today's free PackT eBook is about Python machine learning. You have only got a few hours to grab it though.

11 hours left atm.

I just grab it because I notice your post, never knew about PackT before. Thanks, Jet Cash!

[Jet Cash]

A very good morning to all my readers, and thank you for the rerplies.

To those who don't know about PackT Publising - they publish a free eBook every day, and they cycle through their library to find the offers. there is quite a range from the fairly useful to the quite obscure. For example, today's offer is "Mastering Bloclchain".

[jackg]

About 60% of my university courses used Python, 30% used Java, and 10% used others. Because NumPy has become very common in university mathematics departments, Python is especially common in the areas where computer science and mathematics intersect most strongly, such as in machine learning.

There are some great hardware controls in python code too.
Not the mention the pygame extension that means you can build tetris in 200 lines !

For some reason the Python culture is annoyingly pretentious, though that seems to have nothing to do with the actual language.

It's because they all bash stackoverflow which, if anyone doesn't know, is a forum that if you try to join it and help people, you get downvoted just for trying to join the community and help people .

To those who don't know about PackT Publising - they publish a free eBook every day, and they cycle through their library to find the offers. there is quite a range from the fairly useful to the quite obscure. For example, today's offer is "Mastering Bloclchain".

"Mastering Blockchain" looks like a good book. It's 500 pages long and covers everything from private key/public key encryption, bitcoin's blockchain and ethereums blockchain and quite a few more (looking at the contents as I didn't get too far past there)...

[Initscri]

Python is usually my goto reco when it comes to learning a new language. Extremely helpful in all walks of development (especially scripting/bots, etc)

While it's not the primarily language I use (something that is more market determined, not by choice), It's definitely my goto whenever I have the choice of which language I use.

[Jet Cash]

PackT seems to be having a run on Python at the moment - today's book is =
Python GUI Programming Cookbook - Second Edition [eBook]

Don't forget to download the code files as well as the book if you are collecvting it.

[Makkara]

Ok, what is a good ide for phyton in your experience? Im looking for something with autocompletition and realtime debugging at least.

[TheArchaeologist]

I'm using Visual Studio Code under Linux. Works very well!

Some info on debugging:
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/python/debugging

[worldofcoins]

For me Python is great, its a relatively easy language to learn with many tutorials and materials online and free access. Plus, the code can be tailored to so many things.

[Raja_MBZ]

If you're planning to develop crypto-currencies and program cryptography in future, go for Haskell instead of any other popular language like Python, Java, C, etc (yup, forget everything else!)... Haskell (currently being used by Cardano only) has the best security for cryptography and once you learn about it, you'll be surprised to see how awesome it is mathematically.

[jackg]

If you're planning to develop crypto-currencies and program cryptography in future, go for Haskell instead of any other popular language like Python, Java, C, etc (yup, forget everything else!)... Haskell (currently being used by Cardano only) has the best security for cryptography and once you learn about it, you'll be surprised to see how awesome it is mathematically.

I do like haskell... There are quite a few British universities that post their lecture powerpoints on it too which is quite nice to follow.

It takes quite a while to get used to but for network broadcasting and hardware controlls, python may be better (you can run haskell scripts in python too - using os.system)...