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Is is worth learning Python Programming language in 2024? [Answer]

javinpaul on April 22, 2019

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Jason C. McDonald • Edited

As a Python developer, I definitely agree it's worth learning. That said, popularity is a terrible reason to choose any language or platform. Suitability is a far better motivator; as you've pointed out, Python is suitable to a number of tasks.

One you didn't mention was GUI design. Python has excellent, cross-platform support of Qt5, GTK+, and many others. It's superb for application design, in my experience.

Of course, Python also isn't an end-all. The danger of cute little cartoons like the one you posted is that it doesn't accurately represent every case. For some tasks, Python is indeed that easy. For other tasks, it's like (as I've said before) "beating yourself to death with a wet trout". Every tool to its purpose.

P.S. I've heard that "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" is good - I even have a copy, and plan to read it soon - but it's a bit young to be considered a "classic" just yet. ;-)

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Reese Poirier

Agreed. I'm a big Python fan, but just because you can do something in a language doesn't mean it's a good idea. I wouldn't build an enterprise web app in Python any more than I'd use javascript to automate my OS updates.

I'd also like to plug Adafruit's CircuitPython.

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javinpaul

I agree on this point but in order to choose the right language for the job you need to know a couple of them and Python is suitable for many common task like scripting, web dev, data science etc.

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Reese Poirier

Oh absolutely. No disagreements there. And I'd definitely still encourage new and experienced devs alike to learn Python. One of the most broadly useful languages to have in your toolbox.
And I think it's probably the best first language for anyone just getting into programming. Being able to dip your toes in nearly everything with one language is an invaluable learning tool.

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javinpaul

Thanks for your comment Jason, I agree sutiability is more important.

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Dennis Quesada Cruz • Edited

Or Black Hole photo proccesing hahaha. No, that was joking. In Cuba the official language in the university its Java, but im doing all in Python, regarthless my programming teacher say or the higher years friends.
I hope that in the future it will not be a problem for my day-to-day work. Or will be mandatory to exam in Java.

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Daniel

Languages are not like football teams, where you become a supporter of one of them, and you cheer it even when it's losing the game.

Knowing Java is excellent. Knowing Python is excellent. Any new language you learn will make you a better developer in the same way that knowing English and Spanish is better than knowing only English or Spanish.

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javinpaul

didn't know that Python was used there :-) Thanks for infomraiton.

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leob

Hm I don't know, if you're not into data science then the argument already becomes less convincing ...

If you want to script/automate stuff, or do web development, then Ruby is also a good alternative, and Javascript is arguably THE most popular web/fullstack language. And what about newer languages like Go or Rust? Learning them will give you power and speed and you're learning something truly new and different.

Data science, yes you'd want to learn Python but learning data science will cost you a lot more time than learning Python does.

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Joshua Mervine

Excellent and well thought out post. TBH I'm not a fan of either Java or Python and would recommend Go and Ruby respectively over the two.

However, I do agree that every programmer or engineer of any kind (System, Networking, etc.) should be able to write Python, given that it's native on all (AFAIK) *nix systems and readily available for quick automation tasks.

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javinpaul

Thank you Joshua, appreciate your comment.

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Jesse Phillips

I learned Python in my college's operating systems class. I hate the language but the one take away was it had the best control of processes pipes. Luckily for me someone made a better one in D and I've happily avoided working with python.

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Andrew Stetsenko

Nice article! I think Data Science is the main reason for Python's popularity and high demand. I've checked out your recent post about the highest paid technology jobs and the top 3 positions are for Data Scientists. Seems like this tendency is not going to reduce in the closest future.

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andresdandrea

Thanks for writing this. Any recommendation on resources to practice solving problems with python?

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javinpaul

Leetcode has good collection of problems. you can also solves coding problems from my list dev.to/javinpaul/50-data-structure...

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andresdandrea

Thanks mate. Will check it out. Cheers :)

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rashi07-hub

wow wonderful I am providing free web scrapping course here in {dev} community kindly if you are interested I welcome you

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Ajinkya Borade • Edited

I'm learning GoLang.
Would you still suggest me to learn Python?

I'm a seasoned JS Dev.

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javinpaul

really? did you try online editors like Jupitor notebooks?

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Max Ong Zong Bao

Awesome article :) love the amount of resources for would be python developers.

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Ajinkya Borade

Thanks for the much needed motivation. :)