When I approached the same problem recently, I kept putting it off, thinking that Python would be too slow and that this level of collision detection would have to be written in C++. Yet, when I finally came to think about it, I started writing some pseudocode (in Python) and to my surprise came up with a new solution to the problem after about 30 minutes. How did Python help? Well, quite simply, by using Python, I didn’t need to worry about types, classes, brain damaged idioms, memory management, or any of that other rubbish which doesn’t help you solve the problem. All of a sudden, I found myself using a language which allowed me to think about the problem I wanted to solve and nothing else. As an added bonus, the algorithm I came up with turned out to be fast enough in Python.

Would I have come up with the same solution had I not been using Python? Perhaps. I can’t help but think that I’d have also got there in Java, only not as quickly.

Does the choice of programming language affect the way I think? I don’t know, but next time I approach any programming problem, I’m going to use Python to do my thinking.

[from: perverted by the language]