3 ms·

For my use cases, the vast majority of errors with dynamic languages boil down to being able to run scripts that have undefined variables; I'm prone to (mental)

For my use cases, the vast majority of errors with dynamic languages boil down to being able to run scripts that have undefined variables; I'm prone to (mental) typos, so if I had a dialect of Python that failed before runtime when undeclared references exist, I could probably cut the number of iterations I need to arrive at a working script by at least half. I've never found a valid use case for allowing undefined references, though I suppose it does make the language implementation significantly easier. Writing tests is not really a solution either. Tests are also code and suffer from the same problem.

christophilus 6y ago
At least in JavaScript, these are flagged by a linter. I imagine Python has a decent linter and code editor integration of said linter?
petters 6y ago
pyflakes finds these. It has virtually 0% false positives and runs extremely quickly. Run it on save or in a git commit hook. (I agree that they should be a syntax error though)
- samanator 6y ago
  Would be very difficult (or impossible) to make this a syntax error since exec() Modifies the global scope
samanator 6y ago
Pycharm warns you when that happens. I'm guessing they are using a combination of the abc module (to parse the abstract syntax tree) and some linter that can be found on pypi. Would a validator that runs before your main python executable solve your problem?
- samanator 6y ago
  Oops I meant the ast module, not the abc module
knocte 6y ago
Just make the jump for once: https://github.com/knocte/2fsharp/blob/master/python2fsharp.md https://github.com/knocte/2fsharp/blob/master/python2fsharp.... (yes you can write scripts with this language).
- chousuke 6y ago
  I most often choose Python because it's what's available, and it's good enough for the things I need to use it for. Other people can generally understand my code, too. F# probably is a good language, but I haven't had a good enough reason to use it.

christophilus 6y ago

At least in JavaScript, these are flagged by a linter. I imagine Python has a decent linter and code editor integration of said linter?

petters 6y ago

pyflakes finds these. It has virtually 0% false positives and runs extremely quickly. Run it on save or in a git commit hook. (I agree that they should be a syntax error though)

samanator 6y ago
Would be very difficult (or impossible) to make this a syntax error since exec() Modifies the global scope

samanator 6y ago

Pycharm warns you when that happens. I'm guessing they are using a combination of the abc module (to parse the abstract syntax tree) and some linter that can be found on pypi. Would a validator that runs before your main python executable solve your problem?

samanator 6y ago
Oops I meant the ast module, not the abc module

knocte 6y ago

Just make the jump for once: https://github.com/knocte/2fsharp/blob/master/python2fsharp.md https://github.com/knocte/2fsharp/blob/master/python2fsharp.... (yes you can write scripts with this language).

chousuke 6y ago
I most often choose Python because it's what's available, and it's good enough for the things I need to use it for. Other people can generally understand my code, too. F# probably is a good language, but I haven't had a good enough reason to use it.