Python may die soon …

In last few years Python has been one of the most favorite programming language of many developers because of its amazing capabilities which lets us perform multitude of developments including:

1. Full stack development
2. Data Science
3. Machine Learning, Deep learning
4. Etc.

It has abundant set of libraries which make development very very easy.

The bitter truth- But there is a major problem with Python which can be cause of death of this popular language. This may not happen in short-term (in a year or two), but its inevitable to happen within a decade from now.

Major problem with Python

Python is slow ! There are competitors of Python which are open source and they are gaining popularity already… and the sole reason for that is that those programming languages are very very fast.

So, what makes python so slow?

1. Being Interpreted: Unlike native languages like C/C++, Python code gets interpreted at runtime instead of being compiled to native code at compile time.
2. Just In Time (JIT) Compiler: Other interpreted languages like Java/.NET bytecode run faster that Python because their standard distribution includes a JIT compiler that compiles bytecode into native code at runtime.
3. Global Interpreter Lock (GIL): It prevents multi-threading by mandating the interpreter to execute only a single thread within a single process (i.e. an instance of Python interpreter) at a time.

Another problem with Python

The global trend is for Mobile devices and many people are using devices a lot because almost every activity involves smartphone somewhere- let it be online shopping, booking flight tickets, social networking, internet banking etc. The list of huge. So, this “mobile” domain is where Python is lagging big time. We can create desktop and web applications using Python but not mobile applications. This is another area where Python is lagging big time.

This absence from mobile world can cause very dearly to Python since its competitors can be used throughput the spectrum- desktop, web & mobile.

Major Competitors that can replace Python

1. Julia- It is an open source language and community is also growing very fast. It can replace Python in data science, deep earning and machine learning world because Julia is an amazing programming language in terms of speed. Julia programs compile to efficient native code for multiple platforms via LLVM. Only issue with Julia right now is that it has less number of packages/libraries w.r.t Python so many people are still working with Python. But since Julia’s packages/libraries are also increasing, so probably in coming few years Julia will be a very big competitor of Python.
2. Golang: This language is by Google and its code is extremely easy to write and maintain. Go programmers are among the highest paid programmers in the marker as per stackoverflow. The development of web, desktop and mobile apps all are supported in Go.
3. Rust: It is a safe, concurrent, practical language. It is a systems programming language that combines strong compile-time correctness guarantees with fast performance. It is most loved programming language as per stackoverflow. The development of web, desktop and mobile apps all are supported in Rust too.

Conclusion

It may take time but it looks inevitable that Python may get replaced by its worthy competitors in future. But people may continue using it as scripting language in their test and automation systems.