Summary
Every Python programmer I talk to seems pretty darn happy, but every language design requires tradeoffs. What are your Python pain points?

The past two weeks I did a kind of needs analysis for both the Java and Ruby programming communities. I asked people to relate their Java pain points and Ruby pain points in our discussion forums. The discussion that ensued was interesting, so I thought I'd give Python programmers a similar opportunity.

My own experience with Python is similar to my experience with Ruby, though I've used Python more than Ruby. With one exception, I have only really used Python for relatively small scripts. The exception was a medium-sized script, which has been running in deployment for several years behind the scenes at Artima. My main concern about Python is performance and scalability, so I hope to hear from people who have built larger applications with Python. But what I'd really like to hear is whatever is truly a pain point for you with Python. So if you're a Python programmer, lay down on the couch and tell us your troubles. Please enter your top Python pain points in the discussion forum for this weblog post.

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About the Blogger

Bill Venners is president of Artima, Inc., publisher of Artima Developer (www.artima.com). He is author of the book, Inside the Java Virtual Machine, a programmer-oriented survey of the Java platform's architecture and internals. His popular columns in JavaWorld magazine covered Java internals, object-oriented design, and Jini. Active in the Jini Community since its inception, Bill led the Jini Community's ServiceUI project, whose ServiceUI API became the de facto standard way to associate user interfaces to Jini services. Bill is also the lead developer and designer of ScalaTest, an open source testing tool for Scala and Java developers, and coauthor with Martin Odersky and Lex Spoon of the book, Programming in Scala.