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It's unquestionably more for short scripts - what I mostly do - instead of big applications. My memory is of learning Java, where you're all but forced to creat

It's unquestionably more for short scripts - what I mostly do - instead of big applications. My memory is of learning Java, where you're all but forced to create custom classes for everything, just in case you need extensibility later. With Python? It can .quack(), and that's all I should care about. I understand generics have helped here, but they still don't seem quite there. And ironically, I'm finding ML tasks in python to be something that could really benefit from type hints. Side note, and this bugs me: if people love it - empirically, they do - and you don't understand why - surely that should bring about some introspection? It seems all-too-often to bring about the opposite reflex. Badly indented python code doesn't run, which it shouldn't - my understanding and the machine's are different. Well-indented python code has a lot less visual noise than other languages. That alone should give pause for thought. Why would you not want that feature?

jakear 6y ago
Your comparison seems entirely about python v Java. I encourage you to check out some modern gradually types languages to help understand what Python lacks. TypeScript is particularly good for this. > Why would you not want that feature? Easy. Braces/etc. become basically invisible after using the language for a bit so they don’t bother me whatsoever. However moving code around in Python is always a pain because you must make sure everything is placed at the correct indentation level rather than simply letting the formatter take care of it. I’ve definitely experienced bugs from moved code having its first/last line at the wrong level, and it can be particularly confusing when the last line is at a different indentation than the previous. It’s so much easier to just grab a brace-enclosed block and smack it down somewhere (which also provides a good sanity check that you’ve yanked the entire block and aren’t missing any lines). > Badly indented python code doesn't run I wish this were the case. What’s actually the case is that badly indented python code will give you potentially different results than what you expect, which ranges from syntax errors to failed tests to very hard to diagnose bugs. > Side note, and this bugs me: if people love it - empirically, they do - and you don't understand why - surely that should bring about some introspection? Side note, and this bugs me: if people hate it - empirically, they do - and you don't understand why - surely that should bring about some introspection?
- yodelshady 6y ago
  "invisible" syntax is precisely want I don't want. That's practically the definition of a bug! I know I set myself up for the last line. I can only say I've really made a good faith effort to try to understand the explanations for braces, and none make any sense to me. I've had nearly ten years writing more or less python alongside braced languages (I agree it's not a massive pain), and outside of the REPL - I have literally never seen an IndentationError (err.. that's the same as "doesn't run" to me), or "hard to diagnose bugs". Almost never a TypeError, either. Maybe a dozen or so? I need to understand, from source code, how the instructions flow. For that, I and essentially all other humans need indentation. I never want the machine to interpret the instruction flow differently to me. I genuinely cannot understand how someone can fail to produce python code to that standard. I trivially can in any language which includes syntax specifically for giving a machine a separate understanding of program flow to humans.

jakear 6y ago

Your comparison seems entirely about python v Java. I encourage you to check out some modern gradually types languages to help understand what Python lacks. TypeScript is particularly good for this. > Why would you not want that feature? Easy. Braces/etc. become basically invisible after using the language for a bit so they don’t bother me whatsoever. However moving code around in Python is always a pain because you must make sure everything is placed at the correct indentation level rather than simply letting the formatter take care of it. I’ve definitely experienced bugs from moved code having its first/last line at the wrong level, and it can be particularly confusing when the last line is at a different indentation than the previous. It’s so much easier to just grab a brace-enclosed block and smack it down somewhere (which also provides a good sanity check that you’ve yanked the entire block and aren’t missing any lines). > Badly indented python code doesn't run I wish this were the case. What’s actually the case is that badly indented python code will give you potentially different results than what you expect, which ranges from syntax errors to failed tests to very hard to diagnose bugs. > Side note, and this bugs me: if people love it - empirically, they do - and you don't understand why - surely that should bring about some introspection? Side note, and this bugs me: if people hate it - empirically, they do - and you don't understand why - surely that should bring about some introspection?

yodelshady 6y ago
"invisible" syntax is precisely want I don't want. That's practically the definition of a bug! I know I set myself up for the last line. I can only say I've really made a good faith effort to try to understand the explanations for braces, and none make any sense to me. I've had nearly ten years writing more or less python alongside braced languages (I agree it's not a massive pain), and outside of the REPL - I have literally never seen an IndentationError (err.. that's the same as "doesn't run" to me), or "hard to diagnose bugs". Almost never a TypeError, either. Maybe a dozen or so? I need to understand, from source code, how the instructions flow. For that, I and essentially all other humans need indentation. I never want the machine to interpret the instruction flow differently to me. I genuinely cannot understand how someone can fail to produce python code to that standard. I trivially can in any language which includes syntax specifically for giving a machine a separate understanding of program flow to humans.