I didn't know about detaching from the GIL... I'll look into that.
> native code where performance matters, Python for developer joy/ergonomics/velocity
Makes sense, but I guess I just feel like you can eat your cake and have it too by using another language. Maybe in the past there was a serious argument to be made about the productivity benefits of Python, but I feel like that is becoming less and less the case. People may slow down (a lot) writing Rust for the first time, but I think that writing JavaScript or Groovy or something should be just as simple, but more performant, do multi-threading out of the box, and generally not require you to use other languages to implement performance critical sections as much. The primary advantage that Python has in my eyes is: there are a lot of libraries. The reason why there are a lot of libraries written in Python? I think it's because Python is the number 1 language taught to people that aren't specifically pursuing computer science / engineering or something in a closely related field.
Yes, I think Python is excellent evidence that developer ecosystems (libraries, etc.) are paramount. Developer ergonomics are important, but I think one of the most interesting lessons from the last decade is that popular languages/ecosystems will converge onto desirable ergonomics.
> native code where performance matters, Python for developer joy/ergonomics/velocity
Makes sense, but I guess I just feel like you can eat your cake and have it too by using another language. Maybe in the past there was a serious argument to be made about the productivity benefits of Python, but I feel like that is becoming less and less the case. People may slow down (a lot) writing Rust for the first time, but I think that writing JavaScript or Groovy or something should be just as simple, but more performant, do multi-threading out of the box, and generally not require you to use other languages to implement performance critical sections as much. The primary advantage that Python has in my eyes is: there are a lot of libraries. The reason why there are a lot of libraries written in Python? I think it's because Python is the number 1 language taught to people that aren't specifically pursuing computer science / engineering or something in a closely related field.