What is on Your Mind?

Not sure if this should be in the Programming forum so placed here for safety...

I used to really love Python, but as it has evolved from V1.4.0, (for the classic AMIGA in my case), to its present V3.4.? incarnation has it become less user friendly for newbie and amateur coders?

I have completely switched to shell scripting now because of its sheer flexibility, ease of use and unreal number of simple commands that can do seriously complex jobs.

So in your, (plural), opinions is Python TOO STRICT in its coding structure to be once again a language for programming simpletons, who know little of the jargon, like me...

For example, converting bytes to characters or print() as a function, etc, etc... It is SOOO easy to do with UNIX shell scripting and the choice of "printf" and "echo" with their respective idiosyncrasies is a bonus.

I look back to V1.4.0 to V2.0.1 for the MIGGY and think how easy it was to code but now it seems to be designed for the ultimate professional who knows all of the jargon associated with it.

I just love the idea that bash, for example, is SOOOO forgiving...

Comments welcome...

I prefer PHP.... it's great.

I haven't used Python yet.
Maybe it suffers from software bloat? Or creeping featurism?

It has grown tremendously. It has become another Perl -- a language used not because people particularly like or need its features, but because "it's got a library for <something>". But it does have the advantage of not being Perl.

How many non-library files does a language need to open, to sit there and do nothing?

Code:

$ strace python /dev/null 2>&1 | grep "^open" | egrep -v 'ENOENT|[.]so' | wc -l
42

$ strace php /dev/null 2>&1 | grep "^open" | egrep -v 'ENOENT|[.]so' | wc -l
6

$ strace bash /dev/null 2>&1 | grep "^open" | egrep -v 'ENOENT|[.]so' | wc -l
5

$ strace perl /dev/null 2>&1 | grep "^open" | egrep -v 'ENOENT|[.]so' | wc -l
3

$ strace awk '{}' /dev/null 2>&1 | grep "^open" | egrep -v 'ENOENT|[.]so' | wc -l
3

$

I see. I measured it takes 6 times longer to start python like this, compared to perl.
BTW one can use

Code:

strace -e open python /dev/null 2>&1 | egrep -vc 'ENOENT|[.]so'

Python doesn't seem to be that much slower than Perl for some select programs:
Python 3 vs Perl | Computer Language Benchmarks Game
or PHP:
Python 3 vs PHP | Computer Language Benchmarks Game

We are talking about loading time, they are talking about performance, not quite the same thing.