[agentultra]

Evaluating the alternatives is smart of course.

I just don't understand why type-checking and speed were factors in choosing the language you were after. If they were, then why even bother looking at Python at all? It isn't a fast language and doesn't have type-checking.

The rest of the article is spent telling me why these features aren't important. Both C# and Java have type-checking (though C# perhaps is a little more loose) and are pretty fast. Yet the article claims that Python is fast enough and that type-checking isn't a requirement because you're more concerned with value assertions (and unit-tests are good enough to validate them).

So essentially the article sets up false premises and knocks them down one by one. Type-checking wasn't actually a requirement. Neither was speed. The only reason we are left with for why Quora chose Python was because that's what most people were familiar with.

I'm not saying it's a bad choice or that your conclusions were incorrect. I just don't think it was a good article.

[146]

True, I honestly don't think C# or Java were even in the race. I think the only real alternatives I would've been happy with would've been either Scala or some flavor of ML or Haskell, all of which definitely satisfy the speed and type-checking factors that were mentioned.

Let's put it this way: if any of those languages had half the library support that Python did, then it would've been a decent fight. But as it goes right now it's not even close.

EDIT: Sorry, the library support only applies to ML and Haskell, and I forgot about Scala. I'll have to think about this one; I'm not sure the reasoning for that was entirely well fleshed out.