I have a fascination with functional programming languages like Lisp, OCaml, F#, Haskell as alternates to the tried and true like Python, Ruby, or Shell. But as a business owner I have to also make bets on technology that fit with the paradigms of the organizational structure that I have. I have largely bet on Python for everything. We don’t have really any code that uses any other language.
I’ve been exploring reasons to use F# and in many ways there are isolated scenarios where using it would actually make sense to use especially with the robust type system. But the types of programs I am building don’t require a robust type system. They need the ability to build fast and with access to a large ecosystem of libraries such as pandas and numpy that Python provides. Betting on an esoteric language just doesn’t feel like a good idea.
Insofar as that goes, I am committing all our efforts to using Python. It just doesn’t make sense to use anything else even a faster language like Go unless we absolutely need the performance that brings. We will be a Python shop and put all our effort in support the Python ecosystem and making that better.