PREFACE: I just want to preface this by saying, ultimately, there is no right answer. This is an opinion piece, an opinion with which I might change my mind on tomorrow. At the end of the day, the choice of language is based on whatever works for you, your team, and the business.

rodsenra: rodsenra: what is the composition of your team? What is their background?

Python might be easier to teach.

I think you are making the: “Appeal to the lowest common denominator argument”. One that managers love.

You’re right off course. Short term, Python will allow you to hire cheaper talent quicker. But Python will never be your last language, unless your projects themselves are trivial. I think you will also eventually lose out good talent. The great coders won’t stick to Python very long, before yearning something more. Either they’ll wander off to typed languages, explore lower level raw languages, venture into Actor and other distributed models, or enamore themselves in the meta universe of Lisps, Prologs, etc. Or you need to give them really interesting projects.

Obviously, we’re making a people argument. So its not about the language, but about the people who uses the language.

So, assuming you only hire junior beginner programmers, you think Python will be most appropriate, and yield quick onboardings, and good yield. And I say that’s probably true in the short term.

What if you hired experienced senior devs? Or even intermediate devs? Maybe they already know 2 or 3 languages, or already moved beyond Python, they know C#, Java, Scala, C++, etc.

Or what when your junior devs have now been working on the team for 2 years?

I don’t have any data on this, and I’m not fully sure I’ve made up my mind. But I’ll make a proposition that choosing the path of least resistance will strangle a team and projects long term.

If you use a more interesting language, with more nuances, more power, more expressivity, which allows devs creativity and continuous learning opportunities. I think you will attract better talent, quickly find who in your team isn’t as good (and be able to find someone better to take their place), while also unlocking the full potential of your devs. And you’ll much more quickly end up in a dream team scenario, and the kind of mythical 10x teams that is so sought after.

If your projects don’t need such a team, and is more focused on quantity of output, this might not apply as much. In that case, you’ll probably be on a constant rotation from junior dev to junior dev. Which makes sense in such a scenario. Not everything needs seniority, or exceptional talent, or even people with full on CS degrees. If you’re putting Django websites together on contract, for various clients which run small mom and pop stores for example, that’s way different.

I’m walking a treacherous territory here I know. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making any moral judgement of worth. I highly respect all individuals and their accomplishments and discipline. I wouldn’t be able to thrive and be successful making Django websites. It requires a different set of skills and motivations which I don’t have. And I admire people who are successful at it.

You might think I should get off my high horse (I should and I will in an instant ). What I’m trying to say is: “Stop treating beginners, junior devs, and all devs in general like they can’t learn hard things and learn to ride a horse, even a really high one ”. Instead, you should offer them a safe environment with the appropriate mentoring and support they need to be succesful, while continuously pushing and challenging them, and making sure they know it is okay to stumble and fail sometimes.

Also, you get better by doing hard things. If the argument is: “Use Python because its easy, quick and painless”. You should ask yourself: “How am I going to get better at computer science and software engineering?” “How am I going to maximize my teams growth potential quickly? If I make the decision not to challenge them?”

They say Clojure makes you a better programmer. Never heard people say that about Python. Wouldn’t you want to use a language that makes you a better programmer? Makes your teammates better programmers? Yes it’s harder, but nobody gets stronger by lifting small weights.

I’ll finish with some quote I don’t remember the source of and will butcher a bit: “Do you want to have 10 years of experience, or 10 years of experiencing the same thing?”

P.S.: There’s hyperbole a bit in my post, because my point is kind of subtle. I love Python, still use it sometimes for small scripts, or as a plugin language when embedded. And it can be a great stepping stone, especially to people new to programming.

P.S.2: I don’t think the Python interpreter compares to the Clojure REPL in any way. But that’s another debate I’ll keep for another time.