Python

What hackers pick instead

• RustRecommended for compile-time memory safety without runtime cost, fast native code, and strong types with pattern matching; critics cite complexity, slow compiles, a thin stdlib and dependency sprawl.2039recommend
• GoLiked for its simple, readable style, easy goroutine concurrency, strong standard library and good performance; critics say it ignored prior language design, added generics late and lacks sum types.1254recommend
• ZigA low-level C replacement praised for comptime metaprogramming, explicit allocators and helpful safety checks, though critics say it lacks Rust's memory-safety guarantees and leaves footguns.743recommend
• TypeScriptAn expressive type system over JavaScript that catches bugs, shares code between frontend and backend and helps LLMs write better code, though escape hatches and compile-time-only types weaken its guarantees.574recommend
• JavaRecommended for strong runtime performance, a huge mature ecosystem and stable, well-signposted upgrades; critics cite slow startup, memory footprint and awkward, bolted-on language features.553recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 2628 comments. Each links to the original.

1. I rather think it's the very dynamic nature of Python (e.g. at run time one can add members to classes) which limits performance gains achievable by compilation.

   Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “A Road to Lisp: Which Lisp”

2. Python (and really just about every scripting language of the time) was simply better for containing complexity and easier for a newbie to understand.

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “What Killed Perl?”

3. The ill effects of duck typing and extreme flexibility in the face of massive code bases and large teams are incredibly well documented at this point.

   Mixed · May 2026 · in “If AI Writes Your Code, Why Use Python?”

4. I end up using Python almost every time because it has more libraries, and it's easier to find software engineers and collaborators to work on Python.

   Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “Python is not a great language for data science”

5. First class package manager, first class numeric operations for scientific usages (numpy), garbage collection, uniform human-readable syntax.

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Ask HN: Why Did Python Win?”

6. Python is a joy to program in and it's great for making small utilies, scripts, and even programs that don't require incredible performance.

   Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Flet 1.0 – Build cross-platform apps in Python”

7. Python has a very strong ecosystem of useful libraries because it's been around so long and is popular in a number of application domains.

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “If AI Writes Your Code, Why Use Python?”

8. Python was batteries included, in the standard library, in an era where putting those kinds of things in the standard library made sense.

   Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “Ask HN: Why Did Python Win?”

9. A standard visual structure and a syntax that is pretty close to executable pseudo-code lowered the barrier to entry for a lot of people

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Ask HN: Why Did Python Win?”

10. Think Python is in a nice place where the libraries and packages support the current trend (AI) but remains an approachable language.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Ask HN: Why did Python fail to evolve?”

11. Python is a concise language (fewer tokens in context) with a monster ecosystem that avoids a lot of code having to written by agents

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Type Server Protocol”

12. I like python now. more sanity, (somewhat) more likely that different people will solve a problem with similar and/or readable code.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Learning to read Arthur Whitney's C to become smart (2024)”

13. Python cleverly used as much of the natural language syntax as was practicable to remove the barriers to entry for non-math majors.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Ask HN: Why Did Python Win?”

14. Python (or anything garbage collected with solid libraries) simply is way more productive on short time scales for small codebases.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Writing a C Compiler, in Zig”

15. The bloated standard library is the reason why you can send around a single .py file to others and they can execute it instantly.

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “Python is not a great language for data science”

16. Python is very productive and has excellent libraries, but for a file-heavy encryption workflow the performance characteristics

    Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “Show HN: LockFS”

17. Python is the main culprit in most cases when I see conflicts between various software packages that insist to use only a specific version of their dependencies

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Reverting the incremental GC in Python 3.14 and 3.15”

18. I stopped using python for several years around the transition period from 2 to 3 because a number of libraries I used at the time were in flux with 3 support

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “What Killed Perl?”

19. It's very deeply dynamic and even if yu run imports at the top of your code yu still have many large libs with lazy code execution baked deep inside

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “Linux 7.3”

20. I don't believe that CPython can realistically replace its interpreter with JIT compiler without causing major problems with the community packages.

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “Python's experimental JIT to be removed”

21. It was closer to a decade (3.7) till they'd put enough of the bits they'd ripped out back in for Py3 to be suitable for the things I used Py2 for.

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “PHP 8.5”

22. Python 3 got very slow update and poor acceptance precisely because it DIDN'T fix major problems, it only tweaked around the edges of minor ones.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Python 3.14 garbage collection rigamarole”

23. When LLMs have to navigate Python and TypeScript there is a massive combinatorial space of frameworks, typing approaches, and utility libraries.

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “Go is the best language for agents”

24. it’s only true within a single version of Python, but that over the years there will be multiple, incompatible ways to do niche wild rare stuff

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Perl's decline was cultural”

25. Python's f = open('foo.txt', 'w') is even more succinct, and the exception thrown on failure will not only contain the reason, but the filename and the whole backtrace

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Thoughts on Go vs. Rust vs. Zig”

26. Pythons popularity isn't just pure luck, in fact its only been in recent years that the tooling has caught up to the point where its as easy to setup as it is to write

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Astral to Join OpenAI”

27. Python has become a huge language over time, and it's really hard to make a syllabus which isn't full of simultaneous "you'll understand when you're older" concepts.

    Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “Simply Scheme: Introducing Computer Science (1999)”

28. Python has pretty good autogenerated reference docs, but if you want more than markdownified docstrings it makes them as difficult to maintain as the other pillars

    Mixed · Aug 2026 · in “Diátaxis”

29. The point is that the abstractions exist . You can use them if you want and they will help you to build an understanding and managing complexity if you do.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “If AI Writes Your Code, Why Use Python?”

30. R and Python don't work like this; if you install everything during the Docker image build, they will not suddenly trigger a lengthy recompilation

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Show HN: A physically-based GPU ray tracer written in Julia”

31. Because I understand and can review Python, so in Python I can more easily see when the generated behavior subtly deviates from the specification.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “If AI Writes Your Code, Why Use Python?”

32. With Python 2's release at that same time if you wanted to do portable non-web stuff you had a much nicer language than Perl available as well

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “What Killed Perl?”

33. The Python devs, by contrast, have actually put in a lot of work over the years to support a plethora of operating systems and architectures.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Pre-PEP: Rust for CPython”

34. Even Python's famous readability isn't guaranteed, some of its functional programming facilities are just as arcane and unreadable as *sh.

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “A shell colon does nothing. Use it anyway.”

35. The garbage collection, the forgiving syntax, the interpreted nature: these create a sandbox where vibe coded solutions can fail safely.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?”

36. Python3 eliminated mountains of annoying bugs that happened all over the code base because of mixing of unicode strings and byte strings

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Python 3.15's JIT is now back on track”

37. once you have external dependencies, with incompatible potential versions, I just don't see how you could do this with one environment

    Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “Go Away Python”

38. Better than Python which also recently started copying over JS decisions, except that Py was easier to use with C libs from the start

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “How Markdown Took over the World”

39. However, in every one of these boom cycles with python I dealt with A LOT of developers with horrific software engineering practices

    Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “D Programming Language”

40. there's less vendor lock-in and ultimately a smaller gap between the science software being developed and consumer/end-user software

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Ask HN: What's your experience working on software for science?”