6 ms·

Reading this I can't help feeling that Python puts the "simplicity" in all the places that don't matter. Simplicity is the reason given for not having useful la

Reading this I can't help feeling that Python puts the "simplicity" in all the places that don't matter. Simplicity is the reason given for not having useful language features like pattern matches as expressions, or lambdas with multiple expressions, but I've never seen these features[1] cause problems in other languages. And then we have this... Surely semantic simplicity is the simplicity that actually matters, but the way the simplicity argument is used in Python is often to enforce arbitrary syntactic and semantic complexity. [1] It's almost ridiculous to call these features as they're just a consequence of the underlying language model. E.g. if you have expression blocks you have lambdas with multiple expressions with no extra work.

Doxin 4y ago
Python has plenty of complexity. It tends to stick it in places where new programmers don't run into it. Python is one of the few languages I know that lets you just... poke at the internal machinery like this.
- kmacdough 4y ago
  Have you ever messed around w/ Julia? It doesn't really have much "internal machinery" since it relies on a data-oriented/functional language structure. I find myself reading the Julia source code on a regular basis since it's very readable and succinct. I often find it more useful than the documentation itself. It can take a bit to fully understand/appreciate Julia's multiple dispatch, but once you do you pretty much understand the entirety of the machinery.
saagarjha 4y ago
Or performance! There's lots of low-hanging fruit in the Python interpreter that doesn't get improved to preserve the purity of the runtime, or whatever. (Well, at least this might see improvements now. But for a long time people would point at it and laugh.)
- colonwqbang 4y ago
  Or to enable the kind of extreme dynamism that is illustrated in TFA. How to optimize code properly when even core relationships like "x is of type T" may be nondeterministic.
sweezyjeezy 4y ago
These are fair examples, but 'Python puts the "simplicity" in all the places that don't matter' is a bold statement that isn't well supported by these. I work primarily writing hit-and-run R&D code that has a shelf-life of about 6 months - python is either one of, or the best scripting languages for this, precisely because it puts a lot of simplicity in places that DO matter.
- radicalbyte 4y ago
  Python is hands down the best ecosystem for "hacking something together to prove a point but won't be maintained". It's (a) extremely easy to learn (takes about 2hrs for a Java/C# dev to be productive) and (b) has a very deep ecosystem and wrappers for pretty much any native library you want. Then (c) it works great under Windows/OSX/Linux as long as you're on an x86/x64 platform. The clincher is (d) it's the de-facto beginners language so all the newbies can at least read it and hack away. The competition: * PHP is similarly easy but very limited. * Ruby is in my experience a slow and buggy mess with a community who are welcoming but suffer from a reality-distortion field (might be different now, my experiences were 15+ years ago). * Java has accidental complexity getting started. * C# is competitive but for the low-skilled / newbies too hard and still has an irritating NIH syndrome (e.g. pushing people to MS's half-baked crypto APIs instead of first-class ports/wrappers of libsodium / BouncyCastle). * Javascript/Typescript are probably the closest, they have better package management for the "hack it together" use-cases but the language itself poorly designed what with all of the unintuitive "surprises". My kids are just about old enough to learn coding and I'm going to start them with Python before moving on to C, ASM then if they want to develop anything serious; C# / Java / Rust / TypeScript.
  - open-source-ux 4y ago
    What about Julia? It's as readable as Python. Julia is arguably easier than Python in some programming aspects. Both languages can be complicated in more advanced scenarios, but both languages tout an easy start for quick scripts.
    - 4y ago
pjmlp 4y ago
As someone that follows Python since the 1.6 days and occasionally uses it for scripting, the language is simple only on the surface level, it provides the same magic capabilities of languages like C++, but apparently not many people find their way into the runes tablets.

Doxin 4y ago

Python has plenty of complexity. It tends to stick it in places where new programmers don't run into it. Python is one of the few languages I know that lets you just... poke at the internal machinery like this.

kmacdough 4y ago
Have you ever messed around w/ Julia? It doesn't really have much "internal machinery" since it relies on a data-oriented/functional language structure. I find myself reading the Julia source code on a regular basis since it's very readable and succinct. I often find it more useful than the documentation itself. It can take a bit to fully understand/appreciate Julia's multiple dispatch, but once you do you pretty much understand the entirety of the machinery.

saagarjha 4y ago

Or performance! There's lots of low-hanging fruit in the Python interpreter that doesn't get improved to preserve the purity of the runtime, or whatever. (Well, at least this might see improvements now. But for a long time people would point at it and laugh.)

colonwqbang 4y ago
Or to enable the kind of extreme dynamism that is illustrated in TFA. How to optimize code properly when even core relationships like "x is of type T" may be nondeterministic.

sweezyjeezy 4y ago

These are fair examples, but 'Python puts the "simplicity" in all the places that don't matter' is a bold statement that isn't well supported by these. I work primarily writing hit-and-run R&D code that has a shelf-life of about 6 months - python is either one of, or the best scripting languages for this, precisely because it puts a lot of simplicity in places that DO matter.

radicalbyte 4y ago
Python is hands down the best ecosystem for "hacking something together to prove a point but won't be maintained". It's (a) extremely easy to learn (takes about 2hrs for a Java/C# dev to be productive) and (b) has a very deep ecosystem and wrappers for pretty much any native library you want. Then (c) it works great under Windows/OSX/Linux as long as you're on an x86/x64 platform. The clincher is (d) it's the de-facto beginners language so all the newbies can at least read it and hack away. The competition: * PHP is similarly easy but very limited. * Ruby is in my experience a slow and buggy mess with a community who are welcoming but suffer from a reality-distortion field (might be different now, my experiences were 15+ years ago). * Java has accidental complexity getting started. * C# is competitive but for the low-skilled / newbies too hard and still has an irritating NIH syndrome (e.g. pushing people to MS's half-baked crypto APIs instead of first-class ports/wrappers of libsodium / BouncyCastle). * Javascript/Typescript are probably the closest, they have better package management for the "hack it together" use-cases but the language itself poorly designed what with all of the unintuitive "surprises". My kids are just about old enough to learn coding and I'm going to start them with Python before moving on to C, ASM then if they want to develop anything serious; C# / Java / Rust / TypeScript.
- open-source-ux 4y ago
  What about Julia? It's as readable as Python. Julia is arguably easier than Python in some programming aspects. Both languages can be complicated in more advanced scenarios, but both languages tout an easy start for quick scripts.
  - 4y ago

pjmlp 4y ago

As someone that follows Python since the 1.6 days and occasionally uses it for scripting, the language is simple only on the surface level, it provides the same magic capabilities of languages like C++, but apparently not many people find their way into the runes tablets.