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I really don't get people. Instagram and Dropbox, through typing annotations in Python, are gradually improving a language that has codebases running globally,

I really don't get people. Instagram and Dropbox, through typing annotations in Python, are gradually improving a language that has codebases running globally, from YouTube to NASA. Clearly something is right with the situation when the incentives are aligned for a tech company to contribute back to the open source community in such fundamental ways. So why look for the mole and think "They should have done it differently", when doing it differently has a high likelihood to mean not being as successful as they are today, and not having the occasion to contribute back? It's like telling a successful charity "You should just take everyone's money and spend it on lamborghinis instead of wasting time building wells in africa".

kod 9y ago
No, it's like asking someone who spent a lot of time building an octagonal wheel and is now trying to shave down the corners... why didn't you use a circle to begin with.
- ageofwant 9y ago
  They did not spend a lot of time building an octagonal wheel, they built a billion dollar company using Python. Now, when the code base has been proven, and the business rules solidified, they retrofit what they believe will make the code base easier to maintain. Python is an excellent enabler of this kind of dynamic system evolution.
  - angelsl 9y ago
    You've totally missed the analogy. See pfranz's comment.
    - depressedpanda 9y ago
      No, I the analogy just wasn't very apt. Python allowed them to build a successful company. Now, when their stack is mature and maintenance is more important than rapid prototyping, Python allows them to add type hinting. Because they are engineers, they built a tool (in Python) that allows them to do it in an automated manner. And all of this is great! They are evolving their code to fit their needs; it's nothing like making a octagonal wheel and wishing you'd have gone for a round one in the beginning.
      - tjoff 9y ago
        The point is that there is no property of python that allowed them to build a successful company that any statically typed language don't have. It is a completely unnecessary detour. The cost of doing it right from the start is negligible.
        oblio 9y ago
        You're assuming that the original developers would have been just as productive in a statically typed language as they were Python. Big assumption. Both because they might have known Python already and also because Python is quite a bit more newbie-friendly, concise and expressive than the mainstream statically typed languages.
        tjoff 9y ago
        Obviously what the programmers knew to start with is of importance. But that's no property of the language (well, sure, being easy to pick up increases the risk). But no, ignoring that it is not a big assumption really. The benefits of static typing comes pretty quickly, especially if there are more than one programmer.
        ageofwant 9y ago
        I think the general consensus is that that is not true. Python's dynamic nature is a clear advantage it has over statically typed languages. Add the fact that you can elect to tune down the dynamism when it makes sense to with very little impact on your existing stack makes Python the technological superior choice for the majority of applications.
        sidlls 9y ago
        There's nothing here that tunes down the dynamism. Hints aren't statically checked or enforced. It's still possible to pass in an empty list to an int-hinted var and, e.g. have `if not var` evaluate to True (rather than raise an Exception). Type hints allow external tools to check some things, but at this point you're basically imposing static types so why not use a language with the tooling and optimizations to take advantage of that? Python is a good choice to prototype, write small (less than a few thousand lines of code) projects with non-trivial complexity, and somewhat larger projects with more boilerplate (e.g. Django webapps). Beyond that its utility diminishes until it starts to become a hindrance.
- pfranz 9y ago
  To me, this is a metaphor that might better explain it, "You need a different approach for getting your first million than your second." (I've heard it attributed to customers, revenue, personal income, etc). It sounds like Python (and features like dynamic typing) works very well at bootstrapping and developing. They're leveraging different features (more like static typing) once they get larger and more time is spent on maintenance (and rewriting everything isn't appealing [1]). Honestly, your octagonal wheel metaphor works, too. Building the first car you spend a lot of time on octagonal (crude) wheels, but later spend a lot more money on round (precision) wheels. You could have gone bankrupt spending money originally on round wheels that were the wrong size. [1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

kod 9y ago

No, it's like asking someone who spent a lot of time building an octagonal wheel and is now trying to shave down the corners... why didn't you use a circle to begin with.

ageofwant 9y ago
They did not spend a lot of time building an octagonal wheel, they built a billion dollar company using Python. Now, when the code base has been proven, and the business rules solidified, they retrofit what they believe will make the code base easier to maintain. Python is an excellent enabler of this kind of dynamic system evolution.
- angelsl 9y ago
  You've totally missed the analogy. See pfranz's comment.
  - depressedpanda 9y ago
    No, I the analogy just wasn't very apt. Python allowed them to build a successful company. Now, when their stack is mature and maintenance is more important than rapid prototyping, Python allows them to add type hinting. Because they are engineers, they built a tool (in Python) that allows them to do it in an automated manner. And all of this is great! They are evolving their code to fit their needs; it's nothing like making a octagonal wheel and wishing you'd have gone for a round one in the beginning.
    - tjoff 9y ago
      The point is that there is no property of python that allowed them to build a successful company that any statically typed language don't have. It is a completely unnecessary detour. The cost of doing it right from the start is negligible.
      - oblio 9y ago
        You're assuming that the original developers would have been just as productive in a statically typed language as they were Python. Big assumption. Both because they might have known Python already and also because Python is quite a bit more newbie-friendly, concise and expressive than the mainstream statically typed languages.
        tjoff 9y ago
        Obviously what the programmers knew to start with is of importance. But that's no property of the language (well, sure, being easy to pick up increases the risk). But no, ignoring that it is not a big assumption really. The benefits of static typing comes pretty quickly, especially if there are more than one programmer.
      - ageofwant 9y ago
        I think the general consensus is that that is not true. Python's dynamic nature is a clear advantage it has over statically typed languages. Add the fact that you can elect to tune down the dynamism when it makes sense to with very little impact on your existing stack makes Python the technological superior choice for the majority of applications.
        sidlls 9y ago
        There's nothing here that tunes down the dynamism. Hints aren't statically checked or enforced. It's still possible to pass in an empty list to an int-hinted var and, e.g. have `if not var` evaluate to True (rather than raise an Exception). Type hints allow external tools to check some things, but at this point you're basically imposing static types so why not use a language with the tooling and optimizations to take advantage of that? Python is a good choice to prototype, write small (less than a few thousand lines of code) projects with non-trivial complexity, and somewhat larger projects with more boilerplate (e.g. Django webapps). Beyond that its utility diminishes until it starts to become a hindrance.
pfranz 9y ago
To me, this is a metaphor that might better explain it, "You need a different approach for getting your first million than your second." (I've heard it attributed to customers, revenue, personal income, etc). It sounds like Python (and features like dynamic typing) works very well at bootstrapping and developing. They're leveraging different features (more like static typing) once they get larger and more time is spent on maintenance (and rewriting everything isn't appealing [1]). Honestly, your octagonal wheel metaphor works, too. Building the first car you spend a lot of time on octagonal (crude) wheels, but later spend a lot more money on round (precision) wheels. You could have gone bankrupt spending money originally on round wheels that were the wrong size. [1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...