Sal
Peter Hoffmann Director Data Engineering at Blue Yonder. Python Developer, Conference Speaker, Mountaineer

Is Python good for big software projects (not web based)?

This my Answer to the stackoverflow question: Is Python good for big software projects (not web based)?:

In my opinion python is more than ready for developing complex applications. I see pythons strength more on the server side than writing graphical clients. But have a look at http://www.resolversystems.com/. They develop a whole spreadsheet in python using the .net ironpython port.

If you are familiar with eclipse have a look at pydev which provides auto-completion and debugging support for python with all the other eclipse goodies like svn support. The guy developing it has just been bought by aptana, so this will be solid choice for the future.

@Marcin

Cons: as a dynamic language, has way worse IDE support (proper syntax completion requires static typing, whether explicit in Java or inferred in SML),

You are right, that static analysis may not provide full syntax completion for dynamic languages, but I thing pydev gets the job done very well. Further more I have a different development style when programming python. I have always an ipython session open and with one F5 I do not only get the perfect completion from ipython, but object introspection and manipulation as well.

But if you want to write second Google or Yahoo, you will be much better with C# or Java.

Google just rewrote jaiku to work on top of App Engine, all in python. And as far as I know they use a lot of python inside google too.