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This has to be the ne plus ultra of Python scaremongering. It describes some sort of bizzaro world of a doomed language which it populates with Machiavellian Py
by mazelife 10y ago
This has to be the ne plus ultra of Python scaremongering. It describes some sort of bizzaro world of a doomed language which it populates with Machiavellian Python maintainers, brainwashed developers, and a small group of heroic holdouts who see resisting Python 3 as a moral imperative. Apparently having too many string formatting options is a moral issue (three, to be specific).
As someone who writes a _lot_ of Python code (mostly in 3 but with occasional switches to 2), who maintains several libraries which work in both 2 and 3, and as someone who uses a wide range of libraries in stats, machine learning, networking, web development, etc. in my python 3 work...this piece seems totally disconnected from reality. The problems it describes are relentlessly overblown when they're not simply manufactured from whole cloth.
Put another way: the differences between 2 and 3 are not great, the vast majority of libraries you'd want to use (i.e. are actively maintained or of at least good quality) work in 3, and while I don't doubt there's great piles of Python 2 code moldering away big "enterprise" apps and those sorts of places, it's ever been thus in that space, no matter what the language, and doesn't pose any sort of existential threat to Python.
(edit: I used to recommend "Learn Python The Hard Way" to newcomers, and have just kept reflexively doing that over the years because I wasn't aware of a better resource. But if this article has accomplished one thing, it's that it's spurred me to look for a replacement)
- elizabethab 10y agoIf you're looking for a new tutorial for beginners, I really liked "Dive Into Python 3" (http://www.diveintopython3.net/ http://www.diveintopython3.net/) and have had some success giving that link to new coders.
- RandomInteger4 10y agoI feel like I'm the only one who learned Python from the official site's tutorial page: https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html I found it really helpful.
- bootload 10y ago"I feel like I'm the only one who learned Python from the official site's tutorial page" From Py1.52 I've done the same. I wish every language was as well documented (Perl6 is pretty good) [0] as Py, especially the changes b/w versions. Rough order of reading: What's new, Tutorial, PEPs, Library references. Why is it good? It is canonical, pushed out as a release is done, comes with the install (cf: $ pydoc foo) and is free. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12889082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12889082
- btschaegg 10y agoSame here. Python is also rather outstanding in the sense that there are tons of good recordings of PyCon talks that explain almost every language feature in very approachable ways. The quality of those talks is usually great too, it seems that PyCon consistently hosts very good speakers.
- Neeek 10y agoApart from a few things here and there from places like stack overflow (and of course new libraries), all of my python learning happened buried head first in their official documentation and that tutorial. I'm only starting to realize, as I branch in to other things, that this might not be the norm.
- dagw 10y agoDid you learn programming from that tutorial or just python? What's good about Learn Python the Hard Way is that it first and foremost teaches programming, with python largely being an implementation detail.
- RandomInteger4 10y ago
- rtpg 10y agoOne major plus in the differences is that Python3 makes standard libraries always return text or bytes, instead of depending on the input to decide on the return type. This( + no longer allowing "encoding" of bytes or "decoding" of unicode) means that you have a much higher chance of writing correct code when it comes to handling encodings.
- j7n 10y agoThink Python is pretty approachable for newcomers. It's also made available for free, and fwiw has a version for 2 and 3. http://greenteapress.com/wp/think-python-2e/ http://greenteapress.com/wp/think-python-2e/
- rbanffy 10y agoOne of the nicest things about the Python community is the lack of drama.