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by hydandata 2497 days ago
"It is a poor workman who blames his tools — the good man gets on with the job, given what he's got, and gets the best answer he can."

—Richard W. Hamming[0]

I have rarely "chosen" to use Python at work, but it has never failed to get the job done.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2041981/

4 comments

OT: Your cited NCBI ref to the paper "Ten Simple Rules for Doing Your Best Research, According to Hamming" is pretty neat in itself [0].

e.g. "Rule 1: Drop Modesty", "Rule 7: Believe and Doubt Your Hypothesis at the Same Time".

[0] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2041981/

a programming language designer should be responsible for the mistakes that are made by the programmers using the language. [...]

It's very easy to persuade the customers of your language that everything that goes wrong is their fault and not yours.

- Tony Hoare

I always thought that sentiment to be too broadly applied. A good craftsman should be able to make use of the tools he is given, but nonetheless not shirk his duty to improve upon them.

Not to say I have any real complaints about Python.

I don't think Python is a bad language but that quote is a pretty ridiculous response to criticism when the discussion on this article is a far cry from people blaming failures on Python/Python tooling.