Why was Python's popularity so sudden? [closed]

Posted by Eric Wilson on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Eric Wilson
Published on 2010-12-17T03:29:00Z Indexed on 2012/06/27 15:26 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 427

Filed under:

programming-languages

|

python

|

Trends

Python first appeared in 1991, but it was somewhat unknown until 2004, if the TIOBE rankings quantify anything meaningful.

What happened? What caused the interest in this 13 year old language to go through the roof? Is there a reason that Python wasn't considered a real competitor to Perl in its first decade of existence? Is there a reason that Python didn't continue in relative obscurity for another ten years?

I personally think that Python is a very nice language, and I'm glad that I'm not the only one. But it doesn't have corporate backing or a killer feature that would explain a sudden rise to relevance.

Does anyone know the story?

© Programmers or respective owner

Related posts about programming-languages

Which order would you teach programming languages in, when teaching a newbie?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
If you had to design a study program, with a breadth-of-programming-languages requirement, which stated that the student should be exposed to all major concepts and methodologies that can be taught through (at the minimum) 6 programming languages, which programming languages would you choose to teach… >>> More
Extending Programming Languages

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
(Since I just posted this in another question, but my browser had to be annoying and submit it without content first, here it is again:) I'm a fan of clean code. I like my languages to be able to express what I'm trying to do, but I like the syntax to mirror that too. For example, I work on a lot… >>> More
Facebook Game Development - Which Programming languages?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi folks, I am going to develop a facebook game as topic for my thesis. I am wondering which programming languages i should choice. I am used to programming in .NET. But i am also comfortable in C++ and Java. I don't want to use Flash as the graphical frontend since i don't like it. So i guess… >>> More
Objective-measures of the power of programming languages

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Are there any objective measures for measuring the power of programming languages? Turing-completeness is one, but it is not particularly discriminating. I also remember there being a few others measures of power which are more limited versions (like finite-state-autonoma), but is there any objective… >>> More
Extending Programming Languages [closed]

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm a fan of clean code. >>> More

Related posts about python

unmet dependencies in Ubuntu 12.04

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I tried today to install a dvb-card on my Ubuntu 12.04 (Linux blauhai-linux 3.2.0-25-generic #40-Ubuntu SMP Wed May 23 20:30:51 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux ). The installation failed with an error. After that, i tried to install python (it was already installed but i got this error): linux:~$… >>> More
How can I get sikuli-ide to work?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I installed sikuli-ide with sudo apt-get install sikuli-ide Everything was fine until I tried to start it from the terminal. I typed sikuli-ide But the only response I got was [info] locale: en_US The application was not started, furthermore there is no desktop file and sikuli-ide does not… >>> More
Getting PATH right for python after MacPorts install

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I can't import some python libraries (PIL, psycopg2) that I just installed with MacPorts. I looked through these forums, and tried to adjust my PATH variable in $HOME/.bash_profile in order to fix this but it did not work. I added the location of PIL and psycopg2 to PATH. I know that Terminal is… >>> More
call python with system() in R to run a python script emulating the python console

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I want to pass a chunk of Python code to Python in R with something like system('python ...'), and I'm wondering if there is an easy way to emulate the python console in this case. For example, suppose the code is "print 'hello world'", how can I get the output like this in R? >>> print… >>> More
Python - Calling a non python program from python?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, I am currently struggling to call a non python program from a python script. I have a ~1000 files that when passed through this C++ program will generate ~1000 outputs. Each output file must have a distinct name. The command I wish to run is of the form: program_name -input -output -o1 -o2… >>> More