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It seems like a lot of criticism of Python is directed at the data science community but I'm curious what the alternative is here? Is it surprising people trai

by nijave 6y ago

It seems like a lot of criticism of Python is directed at the data science community but I'm curious what the alternative is here? Is it surprising people trained in math are writing hard to maintain programs? Is biology+Perl any better (I'd argue worse). What languages exist that are hard to write bad code in? I've worked at places that rewrite abominations of Java every 5 years because they are such coupled, unmaintainable messes. JPMC has Athena and Pinterest seem firmly committed to Python. I know some people that worked at Braintree (now part of PayPal) that heavily used Python Home Assistant and Ansible are two massive OSS projects

neolog 6y ago
> What languages exist that are hard to write bad code in? Plenty of languages exist that are hard to write any code in, good or bad.
- carlmr 6y ago
  I often think that stopping people from writing code might be the best way to avoid bad code. Stricter languages like Rust, ADA, or even F# (quite strongly typed), will not let you compile until you reach a certain level of explicitness/correctness. Thereby teaching you some basic things until you can compile. Languages like Perl and Python allow you to do a lot of things, which ends up unmaintainable because it's too easy. The easy version just breaks during runtime then.
cercatrova 6y ago
Julia is apparently gaining steam in scientific computing.
neilparikh 6y ago
> What languages exist that are hard to write bad code in? A language with a good type system (ex. Haskell, OCaml, Rust etc.) makes it hard to write bad code, because it eliminates a large class of potentially "bad" programs, and thus provides guarantees about the code that does type check. If I have an arbitrary Haskell program, it might still be messy and hard to read, but I know I'll have certain guarantees about the code. For example, if a function isn't in IO, it won't have any effects, and a replacing it with a function that returns the same values for the same arguments will be safe. Additionally, the language makes it easy for libraries to have well designed APIs, that ensure that the user doesn't forget to make the required checks. For example, removing null, and forcing Option/Maybe for functions that might fail forces the the caller to handle the failure case, instead of just forgetting to check for null, which is common.
- vlovich123 6y ago
  If they don’t have bad code it’s because it’s a bunch of enthusiasts that are good at coding. Realistically I’m sure there’s even now examples of code that would be considered “bad” in any of those languages.
  - webgoat 6y ago
    It's more the fact that these languages force certain best practices using their compiler. While python can be great when used in best practice, its level of freedom make it easy for the user to get away with obvious mistakes. It's great to have freedom like that when you're writing small projects, but a large project could lead to unintended effects that cause more damaging issues than the time lost using a stricter language.
    - vlovich123 6y ago
      That’s all great in principle, but is there any evidence to support this claim? Certain properties are of course enforced so it’s impossible for a project to do certain things that make the code harder to read. On the other hand, humans are so creative that I have a hard time imagining that, given time and a wider mix of talent, you’ll still have code hygiene issues. Maybe not the exact problems that another language might have, but certainly your own flavor will be developed as developers have less contact with the core language enthusiasts that establish said best-practices.. Again, happy to be proven wrong but I’d like at least anecdotes or some kind of evidence rather than a theoretical argument from first principles that completely ignores the human element.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- holri 6y ago
  > and a replacing it with a function that returns the same values for the same arguments will be safe No. That is only safe at compile time but not at runtime. Because the type alone often does not guarantee the meaning and semantics of the values in the specific context and program are the same.
zelly 6y ago
Julia or Swift I'm hoping the default choice becomes Julia. For one, it's Lisp. Imagine tensorflow or whatever being distributed as one Julia codebase, no separate C++ to compile, no need because Julia can do it all. I hope it replaces R, Mathematica, Matlab, Excel VBA.
ausbah 6y ago
I would like to see Kotlin get more love, but that's just a personal wish

by nijave 6y ago

neolog 6y ago

> What languages exist that are hard to write bad code in? Plenty of languages exist that are hard to write any code in, good or bad.

carlmr 6y ago
I often think that stopping people from writing code might be the best way to avoid bad code. Stricter languages like Rust, ADA, or even F# (quite strongly typed), will not let you compile until you reach a certain level of explicitness/correctness. Thereby teaching you some basic things until you can compile. Languages like Perl and Python allow you to do a lot of things, which ends up unmaintainable because it's too easy. The easy version just breaks during runtime then.

cercatrova 6y ago

Julia is apparently gaining steam in scientific computing.

neilparikh 6y ago

> What languages exist that are hard to write bad code in? A language with a good type system (ex. Haskell, OCaml, Rust etc.) makes it hard to write bad code, because it eliminates a large class of potentially "bad" programs, and thus provides guarantees about the code that does type check. If I have an arbitrary Haskell program, it might still be messy and hard to read, but I know I'll have certain guarantees about the code. For example, if a function isn't in IO, it won't have any effects, and a replacing it with a function that returns the same values for the same arguments will be safe. Additionally, the language makes it easy for libraries to have well designed APIs, that ensure that the user doesn't forget to make the required checks. For example, removing null, and forcing Option/Maybe for functions that might fail forces the the caller to handle the failure case, instead of just forgetting to check for null, which is common.

vlovich123 6y ago
If they don’t have bad code it’s because it’s a bunch of enthusiasts that are good at coding. Realistically I’m sure there’s even now examples of code that would be considered “bad” in any of those languages.
- webgoat 6y ago
  It's more the fact that these languages force certain best practices using their compiler. While python can be great when used in best practice, its level of freedom make it easy for the user to get away with obvious mistakes. It's great to have freedom like that when you're writing small projects, but a large project could lead to unintended effects that cause more damaging issues than the time lost using a stricter language.
  - vlovich123 6y ago
    That’s all great in principle, but is there any evidence to support this claim? Certain properties are of course enforced so it’s impossible for a project to do certain things that make the code harder to read. On the other hand, humans are so creative that I have a hard time imagining that, given time and a wider mix of talent, you’ll still have code hygiene issues. Maybe not the exact problems that another language might have, but certainly your own flavor will be developed as developers have less contact with the core language enthusiasts that establish said best-practices.. Again, happy to be proven wrong but I’d like at least anecdotes or some kind of evidence rather than a theoretical argument from first principles that completely ignores the human element.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
holri 6y ago
> and a replacing it with a function that returns the same values for the same arguments will be safe No. That is only safe at compile time but not at runtime. Because the type alone often does not guarantee the meaning and semantics of the values in the specific context and program are the same.

zelly 6y ago

Julia or Swift I'm hoping the default choice becomes Julia. For one, it's Lisp. Imagine tensorflow or whatever being distributed as one Julia codebase, no separate C++ to compile, no need because Julia can do it all. I hope it replaces R, Mathematica, Matlab, Excel VBA.

ausbah 6y ago

I would like to see Kotlin get more love, but that's just a personal wish