Anyone else feel a certain disgust towards Python?

[Mario F.]

So what happens when you need to program in C for an embedded application or you have to program in C++ to use a certain API?

What happens? You do it. That's what a programmer does. That's what many programmers out there in the world do. That is called programming. If you can't do it because Python is dumbing you down, that is your limitation. Don't blame the language for your shortcomings.

On the other hand, if this is currently being a problem to you, then it clearly shows you are not ready yet. Your C or C++ knowledge hasn't matured enough for you to start dabbling in other programming languages. Better consolidate your C or C++ first.

[Epy]

What happens? You do it. That's what a programmer does. That's what many programmers out there in the world do. That is called programming. If you can't do it because Python is dumbing you down, that is your limitation. Don't blame the language for your shortcomings.

On the other hand, if this is currently being a problem to you, then it clearly shows you are not ready yet. Your C or C++ knowledge hasn't matured enough for you to start dabbling in other programming languages. Better consolidate your C or C++ first.

I don't use Python. I used BASIC when I was first starting out, now I use Lisp for AutoCAD stuff and C for my hobby projects. I've been forced by OSU to learn MATLAB. Lisp is the higher-level language I was too comfortable in.

I'd be more apt to learn assembly than Python, simply because it takes more understanding in order for a person to learn assembly than to learn Python. Not really apples to oranges, I know. This is my entire point though...yes, it's fine as a teaching tool, but when it's so incredibly easy and there are so many libraries to do everything you need, it's just so clear to me that anyone introduced to programming is going to see Python, then see everything else and choose Python. When you do something with a lower-level language, it forces you to understand more of what's going on, rather than just using some high-level function in a library that does everything in one fell swoop. It's like using that piece of crap MATLAB.

Say I want to see f(x) = x^x in the domain [0, 1]. In MATLAB, it'd simply be fplot('x^x',[0 1]). Yay, you got your graph, and that's all fine and dandy. To do the same in C, you'd have to set up a for loop to plot all the points, get something like libSDL to create a window and actually show the points, make sure you display the part of the graph where the line is present, etc. It'd be overkill, yes, but you'd learn a lot in the process. This is how it is at school, you memorize how to do something for one class and then totally forget it, which is what I think is likely to happen with students that see how easy and complete Python is. They don't give a damn about what's actually going on behind the curtain.

It just seems to me that Python takes too much thinking and knowledge out of the equation.

[crowe]

It just seems to me that Python takes too much thinking and knowledge out of the equation.

It seems to me that you're placing blame on the poor innocent high-level languages that are just over there minding their own business and increasing productivity.

Each language is good for something, which is why there are so many of them. You can't fault a programming language for the bad teaching and lack of motivation that some students seem to have.

In fact, one could argue that much more could be learned about programming and software engineering in general when using a high-level language that lets you do things quickly. You spend less time fretting over code that is already done and more time actually designing a good program.