Winston Churchill, Bessie Braddock, and Python

Last night I was talking with someone about the pros and cons of various programming languages and frameworks for data analysis. One of the pros of Python is its elegance. The primary con is that it can be slow.

The conversation reminded me of an apocryphal exchange between Winston Churchill and Bessie Braddock.

Braddock: Winston, you are drunk.

Churchill: Yes I am. And you, Bessie, are ugly. But I shall be sober in the morning, and you will still be ugly.

Python can be slow, though there are ways to improve its performance. But ugly code is just ugly, and there’s nothing you can do about it.