Longtime Java programmer Bryan Clapper has a long and well-thought-out article on why he has a big ol’ crush on Python. There’s all sorts of geektastic techie talk, with code samples even, but it all aims to support his thesis that Python is fun to program in. The question I pose is: is “fun” really a good reason to pick a language? Everyone will say a fun language makes you more productive, in the sense that you’re more willing to sit at a keyboard and pound it out for hours on end. Whether the results are pretty is another question — I suppose it depends on whether you’re writing yet another Web backend or mission-critical embedded code for a fighter jet. I also suspect that many C programmers jumped ship for Java because it was more fun — “no messing around with pointers? Hooray!” What goes around comes around… Software Development