7 ms·

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.
      - joshuamorton 9y ago
        >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's type system is, imo, currently better than Java's, and the syntax is cleaner than java's or C++s. You get all the benefits of static typing without having to put `auto` and `List<>` everywhere. And at the same time, you get all of the advantages that python has over statically typed languages that aren't haskell (like comprehensions). And, when you need to, if you're doing something that's especially tricky or dynamic or whatnot, you can fall back to untypedness. I think the closest parallel I can draw is to something like Rust. You get a huge set of guarantees for free, but can opt to do unsafe things when it's absolutely necessary, and better yet, you can start in unsafe land and then go back later and make sure your code is safe. I'm curious what tooling you feel that say, Java, has over type-annotated python.
        9y ago
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - c22 9y ago
    The first language I learned (after Applesoft BASIC) was C. I wrote C for a long time. About 6 years ago I picked up Python. Today I find it much easier and much more pleasant to spin up a new idea in Python, to the point that it is my default choice for new projects with fuzzily defined goals. None of my ideas have become companies, but I could totally see just sticking with Python even past the point that it became unwieldy.
    - tigershark 9y ago
      Between c and Python there is an ocean of languages...
      - c22 9y ago
        True enough. I've dabbled in several. These are just the two I happen to have the most experience in and the ones that seemed relevant to my point.
      - walrus1066 9y ago
        I'm with the OP on this, I've experience with Java, C#, Python & C++. I'm a big fan of rapid prototyping with Python to map out problem domains, and once the domain has been mapped properly, rewriting in a statically typed language if necessary. Python is much better for prototyping than the other langs I've used. Because the syntax is almost pseudocode, and the duck-typing makes a lot of design patterns and boilerplate obsolete, so I can dedicate my headspace to the problem at hand. Right tool for the right job, as they say.

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.
    - joshuamorton 9y ago
      >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's type system is, imo, currently better than Java's, and the syntax is cleaner than java's or C++s. You get all the benefits of static typing without having to put `auto` and `List<>` everywhere. And at the same time, you get all of the advantages that python has over statically typed languages that aren't haskell (like comprehensions). And, when you need to, if you're doing something that's especially tricky or dynamic or whatnot, you can fall back to untypedness. I think the closest parallel I can draw is to something like Rust. You get a huge set of guarantees for free, but can opt to do unsafe things when it's absolutely necessary, and better yet, you can start in unsafe land and then go back later and make sure your code is safe. I'm curious what tooling you feel that say, Java, has over type-annotated python.
      - 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- c22 9y ago
  The first language I learned (after Applesoft BASIC) was C. I wrote C for a long time. About 6 years ago I picked up Python. Today I find it much easier and much more pleasant to spin up a new idea in Python, to the point that it is my default choice for new projects with fuzzily defined goals. None of my ideas have become companies, but I could totally see just sticking with Python even past the point that it became unwieldy.
  - tigershark 9y ago
    Between c and Python there is an ocean of languages...
    - c22 9y ago
      True enough. I've dabbled in several. These are just the two I happen to have the most experience in and the ones that seemed relevant to my point.
    - walrus1066 9y ago
      I'm with the OP on this, I've experience with Java, C#, Python & C++. I'm a big fan of rapid prototyping with Python to map out problem domains, and once the domain has been mapped properly, rewriting in a statically typed language if necessary. Python is much better for prototyping than the other langs I've used. Because the syntax is almost pseudocode, and the duck-typing makes a lot of design patterns and boilerplate obsolete, so I can dedicate my headspace to the problem at hand. Right tool for the right job, as they say.