Recently I started learning Python. As a java programmer I thus went directly from Java to Python. Here are some general thoughts of mine on python.

I like that python has no end of line signal and it forces developers to use proper indentation. I actually had some problems with me still placing the end of line signal for a while but you get used to not doing something fairly quickly.

Python also has loads of easy to use and download libraries which can cut down on development time a lot, Not that java has a lack of library support. But I did feel that getting these libraries and using them was easier than in Java. Usually all it needed was an import at the top of the file.

What I do not like about python is that it is an interpreted language. Interpreted languages can do different things on different machines because their environment might be different. I remember solving something in Python only for the program to be infeasible because of the execution speed. Even when I fully optimized the program as much as I could it was still slower then a quick non optimized java implementation. What is nice about interpreted languages is no compilation, which can quicken your workflow a lot.

I must say that learning python was not hard, especially after coming from Java to Python. In fact it was easy! I already knew all the concepts. Even though there is a difference in how you do some things like defining a for loop if you know the concept of a for loop learning new syntax for it is quite easy.

I think I will use it for some smaller projects, and some scripting. In the end it has it’s place in the software development ecosystem.