TIOBE Declares Python the Programming Language of 2007

The TIOBE Programming Community Index has declared Python as the Programming Language of 2007 due to a 58% surge in its popularity rating during the year, making it now the sixth most popular programming language and finally surpassing Perl. They also assert that Python has become the "defacto glue language," being "especially beloved by system administrators and build managers."

Re:Maybe we will see more Web

[Scarblac]

Currently Django, Turbogears and Pylons are all hot. Great web frameworks are there, start using them :-)

Re:TIOBE?

[Drooling Iguana]

This Is One Big Earmuff.

Re:Hmmm

[mysqlrocks]

Not being aware of the general criticisms of their chosen tools is another. (Which, if you're not a troll, you've proven my point.)

I'm not a troll, just wondering why there's so much bashing of PHP on Slashdot. I am aware of many of the criticisms of PHP. One of them you mentioned:

However, one of the biggest complaints about PHP programmers is that they're oblivious to a lot of important aspects of programing.

You'll see that I partly addressed that criticism with my "Zend is working hard to increase the level of professionalism of the PHP community" statement. I'm not going to go into a full length defense of PHP but if you are looking for such a defense I would suggest 10 PHP Myths Dispelled [jaybill.com]. I am not a PHP zealot, I just have a lot of experience with it and would prefer to build web applications using PHP over the alternatives that I've tried (Java/JSP, ASP.NET). I can't compare it to RoR or Python since I have tried neither. I've read about both and have seen nothing compelling to make me consider switching. I'm quite productive developing in PHP and am quite aware of both it's advantages and criticisms.

Re:Maybe we will see more Web

[SkelVA]

Perhaps you learned something the first time you solved the problem which helps you solve the same problem quicker the second time?

That would definitely effect any re-implementation I had to do. I probably didn't make myself clear, but the efficiency was gained on 100% new code adding a new set of basically standalone features (A quizzing module added to a document control system). Of course, the efficiency gain was over my estimates, and they're subject to the accuracy of my initial estimates. I've been using the trac timing and estimation plugin to track my estimations over this project though, and they've been pretty dead-on (especially the last couple months).

When I go back and do re-implementation of features already present in PHP, I should only expect big gains coming from being able to just port code instead of design. I would really like to see more empirical evidence on the topic myself, but all I have to go on is my personal data.

Re:Hmmm

[mysqlrocks]

Technically you're talking about the available functions, not the "language" itself. But, semantics aside, I would argue that your complaint is being addressed. The Zend Framework [zend.com] I linked to and the SPL [php.net] are PHP class libraries that you can use if you would prefer to work with PHP in OO way and (for the most part) forget about calling PHP functions outside of a class or object context.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

http://uk.php.net/create_function [php.net]

And if you can't see what's wrong with that (especially if you think it's comparable to anonymous functions in Lisp, Ruby, Haskell, etc etc), you need to go boil yourself in oil.

Re:Build management: Switching from gmake to Pytho

[Anonymous Coward]

This year we replaced an old build system written in make with a (vastly superior) Python solution written from scratch.

From scratch? You might want to give scons [scons.org] a try; it's a popular make replacement written and scripted in Python.

Re:TIOBE?

[Jugalator]

It is short for The Importance of Being Earnest, and this is also shown on their company profile page.

The name TIOBE stands for "The Importance Of Being Earnest". This is also the name of a comedy play written by Oscar Wilde at the end of the Nineteenth Century. By choosing this name, the founders of TIOBE Software emphasize their sincere and professional attitude towards customers, suppliers and colleagues.

Re:Reasons to love PYTHON!

[SanityInAnarchy]

It's worth mentioning that, at least in IRC, this [pastebin.com] is the preferred medium. It should work elsewhere, too, and there are scripts to assist in it.

Your point is valid, but I don't believe I should constrain the format of a language because it won't work in some mediums. Should I not include []-bracketed arrays because bbcode might hate them?

In languages that use delimiters as block and line markers, you can run a code beautifier to standardize the code, and even fix code that is horribly malformatted. If the white space gets screwed up really bad in a python program (line endings are deleted somehow), it will it not only fail to run, it will require a human to go in and unscrew it.

Ah, but if the whitespace gets screwed up in a python program, that's equivalent to the bracketing getting screwed up in a C-style program. So the difference is that broken whitespace is not the domain of a code beautifier in Python, anymore than brackets and parentheses are the domain of a code beautifier in just about any language.

Also, code beautifiers are still going to leave some things out of place, particularly comments which are spaced to match the code.