Python is Beautiful

So I recently read an article that got quite a bit of attention in the Python community. Why are python applications being SO ugly?

Although he may be right in some cases, but for him to ask the question ‘Dear Python, Why are you so ugly?’ is quite ridiculous. 

The very premise of this statement is quite foolish. The person who wrote this article seems to be severely unimpressed with the level of design put into blogs and web application built on top of python.

With that being said, just to debunk his claim I have put together a list of applications that use python and are extremely well designed. 

So don’t judge me based on the layout of my HTML, but on the content of my servers. 

-Mahdi Yusuf

Instagram

This little company recently sold for a billion dollars. One of its factors for being so popular was being so beautiful, it makes heavy use of python. 

Pinterest

What another pretty app? It surely can’t be written in python? Yes. Yes it is.

Washington Post

News websites aren’t the most innovative of designs, but this is not ugly by any definition of the word. 

EveryBlock

EveryBlock started by one of the co-creators of Django, Adrian Holovaty. Ugly? I don’t think so. 

Mozilla

One of the biggest websites using Python these days. Mozilla is pushing the boundaries in both design and innovation.

Courtside

This application is one I wrote for Django Dash with the rest of my team. Although, I can’t take any credit for the design we did take the time to plan it out.

Youtube

Need I continue?

Also I think Path makes heavy use of python in its web application, which is acclaimed for design and innovation as a product. 

So making the statement saying that websites written in a particular language are ugly, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The python community is vibrant with a great many aspirations and interests, beyond just making pretty things. 

That being said the designers are what make these websites look beautiful and a breeze to work with not the language the backend developers code in. 

If you are developer looking to learn design you might want to check out Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty.