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From reading these comments, I get the impression that python developers don't really want to modernize their codebases. This fits with my experience of python

From reading these comments, I get the impression that python developers don't really want to modernize their codebases. This fits with my experience of python developers resisting new language features like types and even python v 3.

desindol 4y ago
Most early unicorns were or are still python monoliths…
- awestroke 4y ago
  Oh, really? Which ones?
  - LittlePeter 4y ago
    Not sure why you are down-voted... Instagram and Dropbox, both used Python.
  - IshKebab 4y ago
    Dropbox is the only one I know of but as far as I know they have started migrating to Go. I guess they'll never fully migrate because they have a lot of code.
dagurp 4y ago
As the Zen of Python[1] says: "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it." so this is on brand :) 1. https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/ https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/
carapace 4y ago
I'm an ex-Python developer. (I didn't survive 2 to 3.) What I see happening is Python getting "improved to death". As people keep adding "features", aka complexity, to Python it's moving away from its niche and coming into more direct competition with other languages and ecosystems (e.g. Rust, Go, Nim, Haskell, OCaml, even Ada and Java!) From my POV this tool, though technically very neat, does unnecessary work to make things harder to understand. Try to see it this way: all this Red Queen's Race, this running hard to stay in the same place, the endless "improving" of languages like Python and JS, are an attack on your knowledge and skills: just sitting there you are becoming obsolete not because your knowledge is degrading but because the youngsters keep changing the tune forcing you to learn new dances just to stay relevant. There is very little new under the sun in IT: things like type checking and inference are decades old.
- grooot 4y ago
  As someone new to python, I don’t understand this attitude. I have decades of experience, having shipped code in swift, obj-c, Java, Scala, closure, ocaml, C, C++. A few weeks ago I was asked to write something substantial in python. I have used python in the past for scripts of < 10 lines, so the syntax is not alien. I have been extremely impressed by the experience. Async code just works and is very efficient. The match statement is very nice. Interacting with the OS is intuitive and well supported. I’m hard pressed to think of a language that would be more concise for what I’m doing. I’ve had the same experience with JS recently too. It’s a good language now, and it decidedly wasn’t prior to ES6. If I wind back 10 years or 20 years, there is just no way the languages as they were as capable as they are now. I can do much more with much less code. The languages may be more complex, but they enable my code to be less complicated, and me to get more done.
  - carapace 4y ago
    It sounds like you have the experience to use Python well, and haven't (yet) had to work with problematic Python code. I don't mean this dismissively, I think a lot of things are "trajectory dependent" if you will. E.g. I'm just starting out with OCaml after years of mostly Python and I'm pretty stoked, but I haven't yet had time to find the rough spots and warts, eh?
    - grooot 4y ago
      It sounds as if you’ve had to maintain a bad codebase in Python. I don’t think any language will save you from that. OCaml (a contender for my favorite language) certainly won’t. My comment is about what the language does for me when I write my own code.

desindol 4y ago

Most early unicorns were or are still python monoliths…

awestroke 4y ago
Oh, really? Which ones?
- LittlePeter 4y ago
  Not sure why you are down-voted... Instagram and Dropbox, both used Python.
- IshKebab 4y ago
  Dropbox is the only one I know of but as far as I know they have started migrating to Go. I guess they'll never fully migrate because they have a lot of code.

dagurp 4y ago

As the Zen of Python[1] says: "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it." so this is on brand :) 1. https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/ https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/

carapace 4y ago

I'm an ex-Python developer. (I didn't survive 2 to 3.) What I see happening is Python getting "improved to death". As people keep adding "features", aka complexity, to Python it's moving away from its niche and coming into more direct competition with other languages and ecosystems (e.g. Rust, Go, Nim, Haskell, OCaml, even Ada and Java!) From my POV this tool, though technically very neat, does unnecessary work to make things harder to understand. Try to see it this way: all this Red Queen's Race, this running hard to stay in the same place, the endless "improving" of languages like Python and JS, are an attack on your knowledge and skills: just sitting there you are becoming obsolete not because your knowledge is degrading but because the youngsters keep changing the tune forcing you to learn new dances just to stay relevant. There is very little new under the sun in IT: things like type checking and inference are decades old.

grooot 4y ago
As someone new to python, I don’t understand this attitude. I have decades of experience, having shipped code in swift, obj-c, Java, Scala, closure, ocaml, C, C++. A few weeks ago I was asked to write something substantial in python. I have used python in the past for scripts of < 10 lines, so the syntax is not alien. I have been extremely impressed by the experience. Async code just works and is very efficient. The match statement is very nice. Interacting with the OS is intuitive and well supported. I’m hard pressed to think of a language that would be more concise for what I’m doing. I’ve had the same experience with JS recently too. It’s a good language now, and it decidedly wasn’t prior to ES6. If I wind back 10 years or 20 years, there is just no way the languages as they were as capable as they are now. I can do much more with much less code. The languages may be more complex, but they enable my code to be less complicated, and me to get more done.
- carapace 4y ago
  It sounds like you have the experience to use Python well, and haven't (yet) had to work with problematic Python code. I don't mean this dismissively, I think a lot of things are "trajectory dependent" if you will. E.g. I'm just starting out with OCaml after years of mostly Python and I'm pretty stoked, but I haven't yet had time to find the rough spots and warts, eh?
  - grooot 4y ago
    It sounds as if you’ve had to maintain a bad codebase in Python. I don’t think any language will save you from that. OCaml (a contender for my favorite language) certainly won’t. My comment is about what the language does for me when I write my own code.