Oftentimes I find myself in a heated argument with a fellow programmer who is not a parselmouth over why python is better than java, C & sons and whatnot. I'll admit I can't do much to convince the non python folks, let me just focus on enticing the newbies with the benefits of learning python.

1. In the beginning Everything was hard and the Monty brothers said let there be python:

Python is probably the most simple programming language out there, simple yet powerful (I will be talking about this soon) and to say the most, python is readable. You can save the colons, semi colons, curly braces , var, lorem ipsum gipsun and just focus on the task ahead.
Unless you're from the 'engineering' world, you'll agree with me that life is much better without further mathematics.

2. Flexibility :
People always hit me with this line? What can your python do? The goodnews is my python can do pretty much anything you want to do. Python might not be the language of the web as much as Js is but if you've ever had your hands on Django (python framework for web development) you will be more than convinced at what class Blog(model.Model) can do.
Ever heard of Big Data? You don't have to be a data scientist like me to before you can write python codes for data analysis, machine learning, web scraping and whatnot.
You can even create GUI applications using TKinter

3. Python is portable and extensible:
Yeah you heard me, tell your zoology lecturer I said python is portable, it's lightweight and you can extend it to integrate your java or C ++ codes.

4. Easy to learn:
Perhaps this should be the most emphasized point, python is easy to learn. Often times, when I tell people I'll teach them python in 12 weeks and they ask if they'll grasp it I'm tempted to add that if you can't understand python in 12 weeks you will be insulting your brain that you're very much okay without one (to put it nicely).
You can learn python in a day, yes you read it correctly, you can learn python in a day and go ahead to write error codes that will point at what is wrong with your codes and with few weeks of practice you'll be able to write codes that work.

Here is the good news you can learn online (just as you can learn even medicine online nowadays). There are thousands of repositories of codes already and millions of answers to similar issues you'll run into on stackoverflow, if you're determined enough you can learn python online and at no cost.

However if you have money to spare and you need one on one tutorials and you feel you can come to Asaba you can hit me up on 0.8.1.2.8.2.2.1.2.7.9.

Most languages are tailored to have strengths in certain area. Python and Java aren't mates OP. Java and ASP are close but there are other powerful langs like C# and C++ that can cover a good number what java or ASP can. Python is best for AI and ML as it has good amount of learning resource and AI-centric libraries.

CodeTemplar:
Most languages are tailored to have strengths in certain area. Python and Java aren't mates OP. Java and ASP are close but there are other powerful langs like C# and C++ that can cover a good number what java or ASP can. Python is best for AI and ML as it has good amount of learning resource and AI-centric libraries.

Another Java guy

Well I never said Java is less powerful, I was just comparing the flexibility of python, it's easy to use and "still powerful". If you ask me, I think life is better without Public Private void static etc, java of course is great for code implementation.

Well if you say Python is best for AI, you've probably not whipped up 'spiders' to crawl websites using python.

All the same, Java is very powerful and python is easy to learn/use and still powerful.

I was discouraged from learning python because it's too easy to learn. To me it looks like a baby language that cares more about rapid development rather than efficiency. The most annoying part is the "Python can do everything" which makes people like me confused and scared of learning it.

I'm currently learning app development, but my question is If python was that good, why do most programmers (new programmers especially) still use java, kotlin, swift, objective c, c++, c# for app development and not python? Maybe it's not optimized for these areas. I know python can be used for mobile development, but maybe it's not for cases whereby speed and Efficiency are of great importance.

For web you hear Django, but what do programmers really use? Javascript. Python is easy but new web developers still run to node.js.

The AI and ML part makes sense because those areas are very difficult and you don't need to complicate things by using harder languages, though C++ is still used for cases I mentioned above.

I think something is wrong with the "Everything" syndrome that python lovers say every time.
These are my thoughts though.

srrrr:
I was discouraged from learning python because it's too easy to learn. To me it looks like a baby language that cares more about rapid development rather than efficiency. The most annoying part is the "Python can do everything" which makes people like me confused and scared of learning it.

I'm currently learning app development, but my question is If python was that good, why do most programmers (new programmers especially) still use java, kotlin, swift, objective c, c++, c# for app development and not python? Maybe it's not optimized for these areas. I know python can be used for mobile development, but maybe it's not for cases whereby speed and Efficiency are of great importance.

For web you hear Django, but what do programmers really use? Javascript. Python is easy but new web developers still run to node.js.

The AI and ML part makes sense because those areas are very difficult and you don't need to complicate things by using harder languages, though C++ is still used for cases I mentioned above.

I think something is wrong with the "Everything" syndrome that python lovers say every time.
These are my thoughts though.

Well I think the only thing most programmers have against python is it's readability(put it in simple terms, python uses English words with few symbols and no semicolon on every statement to make life easy)

Every other thing is a mere assumption bro
Yes python looks like a scripting language so you'd expect it to be slow, but YOUTUBE is serving over 40 million videos per hour (thanks to python). With well optimized codes and employing implementation of C/C++ in your python codes(which I don't think most programmers are patient enough to find out), speed and efficiency won't be a problem.

About Desktop App development python is still a goto language, and you're talking about Androud or IOS apps, then check out Kivy which can build cross platform GUI apps.

The Notion of Everything is as real as they say. Python can do everything, it's just the community of python developers that decide what to adopt from it.

You should also know that a major part of Instagram uses python. Even google APp engine.

...and the reason why most people don't like an "easy" programming language is a bit personal if you ask me, python doesn't make you feel like a hard guy enough

Drjimoh:


Well I think the only thing most programmers have against python is it's readability(put it in simple terms, python uses English words with few symbols and no semicolon on every statement to make life easy)

Every other thing is a mere assumption bro
Yes python looks like a scripting language so you'd expect it to be slow, but YOUTUBE is serving over 40 million videos per hour (thanks to python). With well optimized codes and employing implementation of C/C++ in your python codes(which I don't think most programmers are patient enough to find out), speed and efficiency won't be a problem.

About Desktop App development python is still a goto language, and you're talking about Androud or IOS apps, then check out Kivy which can build cross platform GUI apps.

The Notion of Everything is as real as they say. Python can do everything, it's just the community of python developers that decide what to adopt from it. 0

You should also know that a major part of Instagram uses python. Even google APp engine.

...and the reason why most people don't like an "easy" programming language is a bit personal if you ask me, python doesn't make you feel like a hard guy enough

Yeah me too. I prefer harder languages because I think they're faster and more efficient.

I was doing total scholarship registration for someone. Damn that site takes at least 30 seconds to load. When I see those sites, I think they're built with python.

I think I'll give python a try, since it can be implemented with c++ (though I don't know how to do this). I'm thinking about ML and AI after app development, so I think python & c++ will be good.

Paapii3d:
I think I have a couple of things to say here, I love python, and I use python, as well as i use other languages. But the reason why I use python as my primary language isn't because of its simplicity.- though that is a plus - but it is because of its vast nature. I've used Java on a couple of projects on the android studio, I've used Javascript for react and react-native projects, ionic project, angular and other JS frameworks I've used swift for some ios projects here in India as well.. but believe me, If u want to stand out in present day tech, you need to be a python expert.

Understand the basics, then learn data structure and algorithms in Python, understand most importantly pseudocodes, and then begin to use frameworks like Django which i personally prefer to Flask for web development.

Learn frameworks like Numpy, Scikitlearn, pandas, tensorflow, opencv, matplotlib for data science and machine learning which is the sexiest job of this century.

With your knowledge on python, u can excel in any field of study. even in agriculture.. This is the best time to learn python.

I am nt against any other language because I still use them for a couple of projects.. but for a beginner, i prefer you learn Python.

Here in India, in my school, Python is nw taught to Ist yr students which wasn't so when i started..

Noted

Paapii3d:


Is there any online or mobile developers forum for Nigerians you know? I'd like to join

No.
I learn myself.
Are you into AI/ML. I want to know the list of Mathematics topics I should learn, And the best books for it.

Paapii3d:


Yea....

For mathematics, you need Linear Algebra which consists of topics like Vectors and Matrix, basic equations and graphs, then you also need calculus knowledge like derivations, partial derivations, Integration, cost function to mention a few.

You need to know Statistics: Inferential and descriptive statistics.. Binomial, poisson, etc

Then you should know python more especially data structures and algorithms like stack, queue, heaps, trees etc

I'll try to make a comprehensive list. I'm writing this off my head..

but it still depends on if u wanna know fully abt ML/ DL concepts or u jst wanna know the much u can use in making projects

If the second is the case, the u can go into learning jst the frameworks which i listed in my previous post.

I saw this on quora

MATHEMATICS USED IN MACHINE LEARNING
(current topics submitted by the machine learning community)


*Linear Algebra

Vector spaces
Linear transformations
Subspaces
Matrix theory
Eigenvalues and eigenvectors
Inner-product spaces
Solution of linear systems


*Calculus

Limits and infinitesimals
Differential calculus
Leibniz notation
Integral calculus
Fundamental theorem
Non-standard calculus
Smooth infinitesimal analysis
Constructive analysis


*Probability

Probability distributions
Random walk
Sample space
Probability density function
Cumulative distribution function
Independent events
Mutual exclusivity
Conditional probability
Joint probability
Inverse probability
Determinism
Indeterminism
Probability theory
Law of large numbers
Central limit theorem


*Optimization

Arg max
Linear programming
Quadratic programming
Linear-fractional programming
Combinatorial optimization


*Heuristics

Memetic algorithm
Differential evolution
Evolutionary algorithms
Dynamic relaxation
Genetic algorithms
Hill climbing
Nelder-Mead simplicial heuristic
Particle swarm optimization
Artificial bee colony optimization
Simulated annealing
Stochastic tunneling
Tabu search
Reactive Search Optimization


*Iterative methods

Newton's method
Sequential quadratic programming
Interior point method
Coordinate descent
Gradient descent
Conjugate gradient method
Subgradient methods
Ellipsoid methods
Reduced gradient method (Frank–Wolfe)
Quasi-Newton methods
Simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation
Interpolation
Pattern Search


Yeah I want to go deep. I'm looking for a good book that covers almost every topic here.
And also Algorithms too

Paapii3d:
ok. I think the best way to start is by taking the free course on coursera by Andrew Ng. That was what got me going..

This is how I started.. Yes, we need the math, but when I came to India, my math skill was poor due to our math standard in Nigeria..I decided to take a private math tutor but the guy was damn expensive, i started doin a couple of research until I came across Andrew's course on Coursera and I started with it.. He started the basics of machine learning, talked abt Supervised, unsupervised and Reinforcement Learning, then started supervised learning and gave some math stuff. At the point, I paused, Looked for math materials related to what he said, studied it, understood it and then went back to the video.. I was also making notes, as well as writing things he used often like neural network, Sigmoid function and other stuff.. then i tried to understand these stuff..

So my suggestion is start the course and when you encounter math issues, do like I did..

Luckily in my final yr, we had a machine learning course and we used the textbook "Machine Learning by Tom Mitchel" it is a good book, u can try it out.. Search for PDF online. then you can also go for "Deep Learning by Ian GoodFellow" Pdf also available online. Though thats some more advanced stuff. These 2 books would help u.. The deep learning textbook started with some mathematical basics section. You could check it out...

You can also look up Tom Mitchel's course playlist on youtube..

If there's any question, you can ask..

I'm also looking to come back home soon to take tutorials and seminars as well as provide some of these materials...

All the best

Thanks.
I learnt a lot today

Drjimoh:


Well I think the only thing most programmers have against python is it's readability(put it in simple terms, python uses English words with few symbols and no semicolon on every statement to make life easy)

Every other thing is a mere assumption bro
Yes python looks like a scripting language so you'd expect it to be slow, but YOUTUBE is serving over 40 million videos per hour (thanks to python). With well optimized codes and employing implementation of C/C++ in your python codes(which I don't think most programmers are patient enough to find out), speed and efficiency won't be a problem.

About Desktop App development python is still a goto language, and you're talking about Androud or IOS apps, then check out Kivy which can build cross platform GUI apps.

The Notion of Everything is as real as they say. Python can do everything, it's just the community of python developers that decide what to adopt from it.

You should also know that a major part of Instagram uses python. Even google APp engine.

...and the reason why most people don't like an "easy" programming language is a bit personal if you ask me, python doesn't make you feel like a hard guy enough

YouTube speed is largely due to optimized db and fast servers.

CodeTemplar:

YouTube speed is largely due to optimized db and fast servers.

Well I was talking about the code implementation not leading to as a slow YouTube(as opposed to what a lot of programmers believe), giving credit to C/C++ integration in the python.

The overall speed is dependent on quite a lot of things, part of which CDN is a major factor.

You might want to check this out...

BlackFriday web crawling program

https://github.com/Drjimoh/BlackfridayCrawler