Re: Joy of this, Joy of that

On 11/25/24 23:55, rbowman wrote:

On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 22:20:02 +0100, D wrote:
 

On Mon, 25 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>

On 25/11/2024 09:55, D wrote:

The problem with python is the quality of the ecosystem and the 2 to 3
shift. I find the quality of python libraries lower than in perl. But
I imagine that is due to there simply being more of them, and that it
is a "live" language. Perhaps I found the quality better in perl,
since the libraries that remain are old and mature.

>
The problem with Python is it seems to be the new BASIC.
An entry point for PWCP People Who Cant Program.

>
I see that as elitist. The more people who can learn to do simple
programming, and simplify their lives, the better!

 Python doesn't have a lock on the domain. I worked with a PhD chemist who
programmed in Fortran. He knew his chemistry but his Fortran looked like a
train wreck. The math was good and could be extracted into production
code. Many People Who Can't Program evolve into People Who Can Program or
have valuable expertise in a field where being able to express it, however
awkwardly, is valuable.
 One of the job descriptions of a good manager is the ability to tell the
difference.

The fundamental characteristic of a good programmer is to be able to deliver an application that is useful. Everything else is secondary.
IT department standards for good "production code" were often dogmatic nonsense, labour intensive, often failures. Perhaps it has improved, but in my day corporate IT management was dominated by snake-oil salesman using a team of very poor drone programmers. Management liked drone programmers, because they were easier to manage, interchangeable. The trouble was that getting an app to work took a higher level of understanding and skill, rather than just joining the dots.