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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

JavaScript, yes. Python? Python isn't particularly popular and there aren't many Python jobs around. It also isn't a particularly popular language on any platform but Linux (so while technically cross platform, if few use it on other platforms is that relevant?).

If you've been ignoring other languages to concentrate on Python of all things in the last few years then you have missed the gravy train. Object C, Java, and C are the most popular, and both Java and C are cross-platform (and better still actually used cross-platform unlike Python).

As an aside I see significantly more Java, PHP, and C# jobs than any other language (mostly for web-apps). Then after those I see pure mobile development (Java-Android, and Object C).

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Python isn't particularly popular and there aren't many Python jobs around.

Where have you been looking? Maybe if you only focus on pure web-dev, but I see Python and Python jobs everywhere. But I will concede that many of those jobs are science, engineering or analysis jobs that primarily involved programming python, rather than pure programming jobs.

It also isn't a particularly popular language on any platform but Linux

That is not my experience at all. Of all the cross platform scripting languages (Perl/Ruby/PHP/Lua/Javascript etc) it is by far the most popular on Windows, and certainly the best supported. I can probably also name a half dozen big commercial Windows apps that use Python as its main scripting language.

> Where have you been looking?

The normal places you'd find developer jobs. I didn't check the Python forums or other Python specific job boards.

> Maybe if you only focus on pure web-dev, but I see Python and Python jobs everywhere.

That's strange. In what industries? Doing what?

I see C engineering jobs, tons of webapp jobs (PHP, C#, Ruby on Rails, etc), Java for all the things, VB.net for business desktop applications, and so on. I cannot think of the last time I ran across a Python job except they're occasionally listed as a "useful skill" in a SysAdmin job advert.

> Of all the cross platform scripting languages (Perl/Ruby/PHP/Lua/Javascript etc) it is by far the most popular on Windows, and certainly the best supported.

I see a decent amount of PHP on Windows and it seems to be very well supported. JavaScript I guess more so but that seems like an odd thing to list in that context.

> That's strange. In what industries? Doing what?

For one, Python is very big in the GIS space. Python is one of the main scripting language for ArcGIS, which is the main software platform that GIS folks use.

Python is rapidly overtaking R as the language of data analysis.

I am in the computer graphics industry and specifically I am usually operating in the visual effects market. Python is the main code used for custom tools in this market by far -- it is the glue that ties things together. The CPU intensive tools are C++ of course, but everything else is often Python.

The reasons: It is cross platform (VFX is a mix of Linux and Windows, leaning more towards Linux at the high end), there are Python integrations for each major desktop 3D editing tool, and there is Qt for the GUI. You write one and use in multiple different places.

Python is huge in this market. I guess it may not be elsewhere, but generally if you can use Python for a tool, you do. It avoids the pain of C++, which is really horrible across distributions and OSes.

According to IEEE, Python is nearly as popular as C#, 5th overall. http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/top-10-programmi...

And TechPro rates it #1. http://tech.pro/blog/1885/top-10-programming-languages-to-le...

There are many surveys that may show other rankings, but it is very hard to argue that Python isn't popular.

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