3 ms·

Are folks still excited about py? I see talk of rust and Julia and it all goes over my head, but when I watch a talk given by Raymond about basic data types and

by pen2l 4y ago

Are folks still excited about py? I see talk of rust and Julia and it all goes over my head, but when I watch a talk given by Raymond about basic data types and iterators (his creation), I get excited again (I’m glad to see he’s still contributing! Boy does that man have a talent for teaching) I think while the experienced here might scoff at it, it still remains one of the most accessible and -fun- languages. Also I just adore iterators and any language without it is a no-go.

pid-1 4y ago
I am. Python is a joy to work with. Moreover, new features are being delivered at incredible speed.
throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
pbourke 4y ago
Python just gets out of your way like almost nothing else. I work in graph ML, and Python allows us to glue together runtimes and technologies with ease (eg PySpark).
sph 4y ago
Not that much to be honest. Python is the language that gave dynamic typing its bad name. When I code in Python I must have unit tests even for the simpler of scripts because it's so easy to get a NoneType where you don't want it to. I'm not sure dynamic typing is the fault by itself, I guess it's from a lack of compilation phase, as other languages such as Elixir seems to protect you from typing mistakes much more than Python does. My running theory is that dynamic typing is a sprectrum, and Python is on the side of "it's very easy to get it wrong" compared to other languages. I haven't used the recent versions with type hints, so it might've gotten better. Also, I'm not a fan of how it feels. It is afraid of functional constructs: come on, itertools.accumulate is a simple reduce summing the elements. Why is Python so against map, reduce and ergonomic lambdas? Like Go, it seems Python wants to be simple enough to be understood in large teams of varying developer skills, but unlike Go, Python is much harder to understand and debug in hairier codebases when you add metaclasses, weird backward compatible behaviours, monkey patching, typing woes and an often substandard stdlib.
- DonaldPShimoda 4y ago
  > Python is the language that gave dynamic typing its bad name. I don't think this is true at all. There have been people against dynamic typing since it was first introduced, and their justifications haven't changed due to Python. There's nothing about Python's approach to dynamic types that is particularly egregious, in my opinion. In fact, since type annotations were added to the syntax in 3.6 (I think), there is now support for external tools to do some static type-checking (though these are not enforced by the language proper). If I were to point to an in-use dynamically typed language with dynamic type problems, I'd be pointing at JavaScript. The extend of implicit conversions is truly heinous (again, just my opinion). > I'm not sure dynamic typing is the fault by itself, I guess it's from a lack of compilation phase I'm not sure I understand this. For a language to be "dynamically typed", it must necessarily not check types during compilation no matter what, otherwise it would be "statically typed". So I don't see how adding a distinct compilation phase to Python's evaluation model would affect anything. Also, Python does have a compilation phase; it just isn't distinct from the interpretation phase. There are no longer interpreters separate from compilers, as far as mainstream languages are concerned. > Why is Python so against map, reduce and ergonomic lambdas? The actual answer to this is that Guido van Rossum didn't want to make them first-class. That's the whole justification. > Python is much harder to understand and debug in hairier codebases when you add metaclasses, weird backward compatible behaviours, monkey patching, typing woes and an often substandard stdlib. Most of these sound like problems with dynamic types, honestly.
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  > Python is the language that gave dynamic typing its bad name I'm pretty sure that honor falls upon PHP and perhaps Perl as well as JS.
- klibertp 4y ago
  > Python is the language that gave dynamic typing its bad name. You never saw a line of assembler, didn't you? You also just discounted 40 years of computer science (EDIT: I mean programming, CS has longer history of course) that happened before advent of Python. Good job.
qsort 4y ago
I don't like python the language, it has a lot of warts that are unlikely to be fixed at this point, but I sure am excited by python the ecosystem: there's very little you can't do with it, interacting with different systems, databases, networks, etc. with a few python scripts is very easy and productive. > I think while the experienced here might scoff at it, it still remains one of the most accessible and -fun- languages. This is a shit attitude, and this comes from someone who mostly does C++ and Java at work, you know, "real languages" with braces and builds and whatnot. Python being easy and accessible isn't a bug, it's a goddamn feature.

by pen2l 4y ago

pid-1 4y ago

I am. Python is a joy to work with. Moreover, new features are being delivered at incredible speed.

throwaway0x7E6 4y ago

pbourke 4y ago

Python just gets out of your way like almost nothing else. I work in graph ML, and Python allows us to glue together runtimes and technologies with ease (eg PySpark).

sph 4y ago

Not that much to be honest. Python is the language that gave dynamic typing its bad name. When I code in Python I must have unit tests even for the simpler of scripts because it's so easy to get a NoneType where you don't want it to. I'm not sure dynamic typing is the fault by itself, I guess it's from a lack of compilation phase, as other languages such as Elixir seems to protect you from typing mistakes much more than Python does. My running theory is that dynamic typing is a sprectrum, and Python is on the side of "it's very easy to get it wrong" compared to other languages. I haven't used the recent versions with type hints, so it might've gotten better. Also, I'm not a fan of how it feels. It is afraid of functional constructs: come on, itertools.accumulate is a simple reduce summing the elements. Why is Python so against map, reduce and ergonomic lambdas? Like Go, it seems Python wants to be simple enough to be understood in large teams of varying developer skills, but unlike Go, Python is much harder to understand and debug in hairier codebases when you add metaclasses, weird backward compatible behaviours, monkey patching, typing woes and an often substandard stdlib.

DonaldPShimoda 4y ago
> Python is the language that gave dynamic typing its bad name. I don't think this is true at all. There have been people against dynamic typing since it was first introduced, and their justifications haven't changed due to Python. There's nothing about Python's approach to dynamic types that is particularly egregious, in my opinion. In fact, since type annotations were added to the syntax in 3.6 (I think), there is now support for external tools to do some static type-checking (though these are not enforced by the language proper). If I were to point to an in-use dynamically typed language with dynamic type problems, I'd be pointing at JavaScript. The extend of implicit conversions is truly heinous (again, just my opinion). > I'm not sure dynamic typing is the fault by itself, I guess it's from a lack of compilation phase I'm not sure I understand this. For a language to be "dynamically typed", it must necessarily not check types during compilation no matter what, otherwise it would be "statically typed". So I don't see how adding a distinct compilation phase to Python's evaluation model would affect anything. Also, Python does have a compilation phase; it just isn't distinct from the interpretation phase. There are no longer interpreters separate from compilers, as far as mainstream languages are concerned. > Why is Python so against map, reduce and ergonomic lambdas? The actual answer to this is that Guido van Rossum didn't want to make them first-class. That's the whole justification. > Python is much harder to understand and debug in hairier codebases when you add metaclasses, weird backward compatible behaviours, monkey patching, typing woes and an often substandard stdlib. Most of these sound like problems with dynamic types, honestly.
formerly_proven 4y ago
> Python is the language that gave dynamic typing its bad name I'm pretty sure that honor falls upon PHP and perhaps Perl as well as JS.
klibertp 4y ago
> Python is the language that gave dynamic typing its bad name. You never saw a line of assembler, didn't you? You also just discounted 40 years of computer science (EDIT: I mean programming, CS has longer history of course) that happened before advent of Python. Good job.

qsort 4y ago

I don't like python the language, it has a lot of warts that are unlikely to be fixed at this point, but I sure am excited by python the ecosystem: there's very little you can't do with it, interacting with different systems, databases, networks, etc. with a few python scripts is very easy and productive. > I think while the experienced here might scoff at it, it still remains one of the most accessible and -fun- languages. This is a shit attitude, and this comes from someone who mostly does C++ and Java at work, you know, "real languages" with braces and builds and whatnot. Python being easy and accessible isn't a bug, it's a goddamn feature.