7 ms·

I hope I'm not the only person who reads this and really, really dislikes this. If Python's gonna have breaking syntax, why not work on bringing it more in lin

I hope I'm not the only person who reads this and really, really dislikes this. If Python's gonna have breaking syntax, why not work on bringing it more in line with other modern languages that don't require special breakout syntax for expressions and rely more on functional features? Are we still maintaining that lambdas are hard but suggesting expression-scoped variables are easy?

viraptor 8y ago
The difference here is that this pattern of get-value-check-it is in pretty much every program longer than a few lines. And possibly in every one using regexes. Missing lambda opportunities are not nearly as easy to point out.
- KirinDave 8y ago
  Since when has brevity been a goal for Python tho?
- ehsankia 8y ago
  Making your whole language and code more complicated just to save one line of code? No thanks. Python to me has always been about clarity and simplicity. If i wanted to write cipher unreadable code, I'd just use C++
_diyu 8y ago
Speaking as someone whose first dynamic language was python, it’s full of weird inconsistencies and I have no idea why anyone voluntarily chooses it when teaching programming. Granted all languages have warts, but people say python is easier to learn programming concepts in than other languages and I just don’t see it. I think they just mean the indentation syntax discourages confusingly indented code?
- icebraining 8y ago
  What would you choose?
  - amorousf00p 8y ago
    C of course.
    - KirinDave 8y ago
      Why do you advocate such violence?
  - _diyu 8y ago
    For beginners? Whatever’s most popular on the job market. Ideally something with C syntax. Most languages are similar enough and their quirks can be avoided. Lisps are definitely a bad idea for this since the syntax is less intuitive to most people. ML languages like Haskell are not for everyone either, they require mathematically inclined minds. So maybe Java or JavaScript?
    - kalesho 8y ago
      Do you really believe JS is less wart-y than Python?
      - KirinDave 8y ago
        Do you really believe Python is less warty than JavaScript? A lot of the same numeric tower decision exist. There's a big schism between List Comprehensions and not, there's no simple way to ship closures around, and Python's concurrent I/O story is a sizzling hot mess. JavaScript has plenty of problems. So does Python. So why does Python maintain everyone else is stupid for embracing programming constructs that have been deployed successfully since the 60's?
    - cup-of-tea 8y ago
      When I read your first post I thought you were going to suggest something sensible like using a language geared toward paedagogy instead of whatever language du jour, but what you've written here is absurd. C does not have intuitive syntax. Many places already do teach Java as a first language and it's a disastter for many reasons. Lisp has very intuitive syntax. The only people who don't find it intuitive are those who have struggled with C-like syntax for long enough they can't see anything else. The only reason Python is used is because it's popular so it seems to fit your criteria outlined in this comment just fine.
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
> Are we still maintaining that lambdas are hard but suggesting expression-scoped variables are easy? We maintain that list comprehensions do all the things lambdas can without the clunky anonymous functions. All while clearly communicating that a sequence is being transformed without any obscure syntax.
- nerdwaller 8y ago
  List comprehensions are more a substitute for map than anything else (which is generally discouraged in the ecosystem). For comparison: `map(lambda x: x * 2, range(10))` vs `[x * 2 for x in range(10)]`. However lambdas are mostly discouraged because they're often harder to read for anything non-trivial (and really you can't do much non-trivial with them since they are so dwarfed) and you can just define a function in the same block and pass the function reference in place of a lambda. I think the premise is more that it's clearer to pass a clearly named method describing the intent instead of a lambda describing the how.
  - KirinDave 8y ago
    This is an assertion by a Supreme Dictator of the ecosystem. It's not actually backed by any metrics. It not indicated by any stuides. It's not borne out in any data brought to you by teachers. It's actually contradictory to previous findings. We can also see a migration away from list and object comprehensions in languages that support both them and lambdas (e.g., C#, Haskell). How the Python community has maintained it's opinion that everyone else is stupid and wrong while also suggesting that their tooling is impossible to understand is beyond me. It seems like a contradictory position.
    - nerdwaller 8y ago
      That's true, though being pretty involved in the ecosystem (e.g. anecdote) I believe that people tend to agree with the general concepts (with exceptions). > it's opinion that everyone else is stupid and wrong I can't speak for the BDFL, but I don't believe this is the intent. It's not meant to say everyone else is wrong and Python is right, rather that Python prefers fewer ways to do things and certain complexities aren't worth it when there's a good way already in the language to do $feature. Complexity may not be in the python layer even, it could be maintenance in the underlying implementation (CPython, PyPy, Jython, ...)

viraptor 8y ago

The difference here is that this pattern of get-value-check-it is in pretty much every program longer than a few lines. And possibly in every one using regexes. Missing lambda opportunities are not nearly as easy to point out.

KirinDave 8y ago
Since when has brevity been a goal for Python tho?
ehsankia 8y ago
Making your whole language and code more complicated just to save one line of code? No thanks. Python to me has always been about clarity and simplicity. If i wanted to write cipher unreadable code, I'd just use C++

_diyu 8y ago

Speaking as someone whose first dynamic language was python, it’s full of weird inconsistencies and I have no idea why anyone voluntarily chooses it when teaching programming. Granted all languages have warts, but people say python is easier to learn programming concepts in than other languages and I just don’t see it. I think they just mean the indentation syntax discourages confusingly indented code?

icebraining 8y ago
What would you choose?
- amorousf00p 8y ago
  C of course.
  - KirinDave 8y ago
    Why do you advocate such violence?
- _diyu 8y ago
  For beginners? Whatever’s most popular on the job market. Ideally something with C syntax. Most languages are similar enough and their quirks can be avoided. Lisps are definitely a bad idea for this since the syntax is less intuitive to most people. ML languages like Haskell are not for everyone either, they require mathematically inclined minds. So maybe Java or JavaScript?
  - kalesho 8y ago
    Do you really believe JS is less wart-y than Python?
    - KirinDave 8y ago
      Do you really believe Python is less warty than JavaScript? A lot of the same numeric tower decision exist. There's a big schism between List Comprehensions and not, there's no simple way to ship closures around, and Python's concurrent I/O story is a sizzling hot mess. JavaScript has plenty of problems. So does Python. So why does Python maintain everyone else is stupid for embracing programming constructs that have been deployed successfully since the 60's?
  - cup-of-tea 8y ago
    When I read your first post I thought you were going to suggest something sensible like using a language geared toward paedagogy instead of whatever language du jour, but what you've written here is absurd. C does not have intuitive syntax. Many places already do teach Java as a first language and it's a disastter for many reasons. Lisp has very intuitive syntax. The only people who don't find it intuitive are those who have struggled with C-like syntax for long enough they can't see anything else. The only reason Python is used is because it's popular so it seems to fit your criteria outlined in this comment just fine.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

> Are we still maintaining that lambdas are hard but suggesting expression-scoped variables are easy? We maintain that list comprehensions do all the things lambdas can without the clunky anonymous functions. All while clearly communicating that a sequence is being transformed without any obscure syntax.

nerdwaller 8y ago
List comprehensions are more a substitute for map than anything else (which is generally discouraged in the ecosystem). For comparison: `map(lambda x: x * 2, range(10))` vs `[x * 2 for x in range(10)]`. However lambdas are mostly discouraged because they're often harder to read for anything non-trivial (and really you can't do much non-trivial with them since they are so dwarfed) and you can just define a function in the same block and pass the function reference in place of a lambda. I think the premise is more that it's clearer to pass a clearly named method describing the intent instead of a lambda describing the how.
- KirinDave 8y ago
  This is an assertion by a Supreme Dictator of the ecosystem. It's not actually backed by any metrics. It not indicated by any stuides. It's not borne out in any data brought to you by teachers. It's actually contradictory to previous findings. We can also see a migration away from list and object comprehensions in languages that support both them and lambdas (e.g., C#, Haskell). How the Python community has maintained it's opinion that everyone else is stupid and wrong while also suggesting that their tooling is impossible to understand is beyond me. It seems like a contradictory position.
  - nerdwaller 8y ago
    That's true, though being pretty involved in the ecosystem (e.g. anecdote) I believe that people tend to agree with the general concepts (with exceptions). > it's opinion that everyone else is stupid and wrong I can't speak for the BDFL, but I don't believe this is the intent. It's not meant to say everyone else is wrong and Python is right, rather that Python prefers fewer ways to do things and certain complexities aren't worth it when there's a good way already in the language to do $feature. Complexity may not be in the python layer even, it could be maintenance in the underlying implementation (CPython, PyPy, Jython, ...)