What is even python good at or use for?

This view is very skewed, dangerous and not that helpful to new people, IMO. Being a language elitist helps no one. You know why there are so many languages? Because the authors creating new languages can't find one that fits their needs. No language is perfect. Yes, Python is well known as a very easy to learn language. That is a major selling point. It is also great for scripting. Again, point for Python. No, C can't be used for scripting because it needs to be complied, this is true. However, with Python, and not just with major applications, if you have somewhat complicated programs you are going to suffer a performance hit because it's being interpreted on the fly. You make the point that Python is better for web applications, what do you think the interpreters converting your Python code are written in? It's wholly unfair to say that memory management is C's only advantage. Actually, since you manually manage memory in C it's only as good as the programmer. What makes it perform so well is the low level at which you are able to provide commands to be converted into assembly and then into binary. To say that Python is the only choice unless you are writing an application like Photoshop that contains millions of lines of code is irresponsible and a disservice to new programmers. Please be more careful about what you state as fact in the future.

how did you get the impression that I am an elitist? I clearly state that most languages do fall short of C and I imply that they are all useful and have their place

I was talking about how good python is because this is the question here, is python necessary?

Based on everything you say after that first line, the line comes off as sarcastic and insincere. I'm sorry if that's not the way it was meant. However, I'm sure I won't be the only one who reads it that way so I want there to be a counter point to your point should new developers come along and think "Eff C! C is effing stupid! That guy in the forums listed like 10 reasons why Python is good and 1 reason why C is good!" Regardless of how you actually feel your final sentence seems to imply that if you aren't writing a huge program, the only acceptable language is Python, when this absolutely is not the case.

well, actually, if you read your own post, the only good thing you mention about C is indeed performance

when the program is small enough, the difference in performance between the two languages is arbitrary, so why would you choose C? actually, by using the python built in libraries, you can improve performance which would suffer in C because you would have to write the functions yourself

I am far from elitist, my goal is to be proficient in as many languages as possible, and I am always open to discussion.

it seems to me that python would outperform c in smaller applications, and even if it didnt, the advantages of using it would out weight the negligible difference in performance.

so I seem to be missing something which maybe you'd want to clarify

Main advantage of != only reason for. Don't be confused by me listing performance as the major advantage as it being the only advantage. I'll elaborate more tomorrow (I'm in the States). I'm tired, my birthday is over and I have work in the morning.

ok patrick, but if you are going to accost me for saying that performance is the only advantage that C has, maybe you should then go on to list other advantages

happy birthday btw

Thanks. I could have done without having had to deal with my car insurance company on my birthday but oh well (part of the reason I may have come off a bit abrasive).

tl:dr You also get the advantage of seeing how everything is working at pretty much the lowest level. You also have better control over things like byte streams and your platform in general.

Anyway, I'm not accosting you. You are taking my comments to be personal. They are not meant that way. Maybe the "language elitist" part was a bit personal, I apologize for that. However I will defend the position I took on the content of your posts. They appear very one-sided in favor of Python and make it seem like C has no good applications other than massive software engineering projects. We are a community of beginners. Therefore I feel that we have a responsibility to the community to attempt to provide the most accurate, unbiased information we possibly can.

You bring up very good points in favor of Python for a lot of things. I agree with many of those points which I stated in previous posts. As I mentioned in my initial post (I think) C is "close to the metal". Being close to the metal has its advantages. Not just performance. Though that is the most notable. You also have finer control over the system you are writing code for. For instance I can control individual buffers on a micro controller exactly the way I intend to. When you use Python or Wiring to program an Arduino, what's actually happening is your code is being converted to C then from C to assembly for the MCU. Yes, you can do this, and yes, it's easy. You have no idea how what's happening is happening though. You are at the mercy of whomever wrote that library, trusting that they are doing the task in the appropriate way.

Here's another example that will apply to almost everyone at some point. You want to connect from your piece of software to the internet or to a device on your network. You'll need to work with sockets. Most languages abstract this away which makes it nice and easy to work with. However, you don't have as much control of the byte stream as you might if you are doing the work with C. You have finer control over how to handle the data coming in deciding what to do from there.

This got longer than I had hoped so I'll end it here. To conclude, in addition to the performance benefits you also have the ability to directly control more of your environment, you are more aware of how certain things are being accomplished in your code (it's a plexiglass box instead of a black box) and you have better access to the very low level, raw data/information generated with certain tasks. These are just the ones that come to mind off the top of my head, I'm sure there are others.

By all means, have an opinion on which you like better, say "I like this one better", defend your opinion, but try to be fair about it. "I like XXXXXX because you can do this, this and this more easily but in all honesty you can do this in XXX that you can't in XXXXXXX ." Especially in a community such as Team Treehouse.

I believe C/Obj-C is hard to master , I'm on it my self and uh its a lot different than JS or Ruby or any other , although as from what i remember python is fairly similar to C as the beginning printf("Hello World"); i believe thats python and C is similar with missing some @ etc..

But over all , in C you could do what you do in Python and more right? as far as i read , so why bothering learning Python ?

I get the idea of what you wrote but i just don't get it , either what i read was messed up . But I'm really curious since it frustrates me as i started once by my self and i would say its pretty simple as ruby , writing a program after 2days .

Since treehouse realised it, i was a bit shocked because i actually though that language is going away , but i see its still in use .

So as in C you could , i believe do the same stuff as on python whats the difference really?

I did watch a intro to C and Objective-C so I'm just wondering with python as i know that you could do similar stuff with it and as in college a teacher told me that you could write and app on mobile with it too but umm.. I'm little confused with it still .

Don't let the syntax fool you. Just because languages look the same doesn't mean they are similar. Many modern languages borrow syntax from C. Most of the people who designed those languages are likely come from a background of C or at the least are familiar with writing C. Actually, C is a great language to write an interpreter for an interpreted language. I'm pretty sure the Python interpreter is written in C. Each has an area where it excels versus the other. Technically you can do most things in C that you can do in Python but why would you want to write a C program you have to compile to do something that you could easily do in Python just by copying a script over to your computer? Python is still very popular. It's a great language for beginners. You can use it to teach most OO concepts, it has most of the important structures of other modern languages. At the core of it, Python is great for writing scripts to improve workflows, etc. C has to be complied so you can't just move files from one computer to the other and run them. You have to build them first. So as in my previous example if you write a script that compares files in a folder, you can copy this to a Mac or a PC, run it in the Python interpreter for that OS and it will just work. Not so with C. C on the other hand is great for making applications that need to perform very well. For example the Python or Ruby interpreters. Also a lot of server software is written in C. Also, if you do any work with embedded electronics, because of the low memory overhead and small file sizes of C you'll likely end up using that.

You're assuming that by knowing something about your hardware it means you can interact with it on a fundamental level. With higher level languages this is not always the case though many times it also is the case. There is also a difference between knowing how to write code in C and knowing what your code is doing. I know C and I know Python, it doesn't mean I know how the Python interpreter implements APIs. And again, you're generalizing that all my points lead back to memory management which is not the case.

We continue to repeat points so I feel that this conversation has reached it's EOL. I'll leave it with this, I've said numerous times that Python is a good language for certain things. If you review my answer to OP before you and I started our discussion I say "Each has an area where it excels versus the other". I then go on to list a few examples. I've tried to be fair to both languages. I am elitist but with respect to providing fair, unbiased comparisons. To your credit you did say C was good for large programs. While this is true it's not the only reason to use C which is why I felt the need to jump in and add my $.02.

Happy coding (in whichever language you may choose).

Um C has its own advantages over Pyhton.
Python has it own advantages over C.

Python and C are similar as you can make a software but different ( i hope this is understandable).

As reffering to my question , i just wanted to know something , i know it now, and yes, the discussion is longer as for others etc...
Now continuing and arguing about C and Python , clearly theres something different in them .

Its like why using PHP if we have a clean Ruby on Rails easy language . C and Python is the same thing( when were talking on it here ) in my opinion in a certain level .

Hope this helps ^^

I think you're getting the most important point. All languages have their advantages and disadvantages. And thanks! :-)