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I'm a relatively inexperienced developer compared to a lot of people on HN, so I suppose take my perspective with a grain of salt. For context, I started with J

by rewgs 4y ago

I'm a relatively inexperienced developer compared to a lot of people on HN, so I suppose take my perspective with a grain of salt. For context, I started with JS, spent some time with C because I wanted the history/perspective (didn't have a practical need for it, though), then got into bash for purely practical reasons. I also have a bit of experience with C#, primarily with Unity, and C++, because ultimately I'm looking to build audio plugins and applications, but at this point I've done little more than take a tour of those two languages. A year ago I began writing Python because I inherited a lot of code from a former coworker. At this point I'd consider it my main language. I've heard people echo the "Python is the second-best language for anything" sentiment a lot. A bit broad and a touch pithy, but over all I'm inclined to agree. It's a language clearly (and explicitly, as said by Guido) designed to be readable, and I think that more than anything else is why I have a case of the warm fuzzies for it. Compare even a small thing, like f strings in Python vs string interpolation in JS -- f strings are simply less noisy and therefore easier to read. Decorators, when used well, make it a fantastic language with which to write libraries that a user can grok quickly. Etc. If I could design my perfect language, it would be Python, just with clear variable declarations via a keyword such as `var`, optional true static typing and consts, and better tooling -- though, I have to say, after diving in and really learning the ins and outs of venv, poetry, all that stuff, the "Python's tooling is a disaster" meme is IMO a touch overblown; I felt that way as well at one point and in hindsight it was due to me feeling overwhelmed, as opposed to any objective evaluation of the tooling; that said, there is definitely room for improvement. I myself am incredibly interested in properly learning C++, Rust, Go, and improving my JS skills, but overall it never quite feels like the juice is worth the squeeze, because Python really does just feel like "the second best language for anything." And since my interests are pretty wide -- everything from web dev to scripting to desktop apps to audio (well, Python is perhaps the worst language there), most of the time it just seems more practical to figure out a way to do the thing I want to do in Python, especially because there's usually a library for it already. That said, I'm a solo developer at a non-tech-related-industry job, so I'm not rubbing up against many of the same frictions I see discussed so often here on HN. As I said, though, I'm still pretty green and am aware that I know just enough to be dangerous, so I'm very open to hear why anyone disagrees with this viewpoint.

bmitc 4y ago
> If I could design my perfect language, it would be Python, just with clear variable declarations via a keyword such as `var`, optional true static typing and consts, and better tooling I highly recommend taking a look at F#. It is functional first, but it is multi paradigm in that it supports imperative and OOP programming just as well. You can write code in F# effectively how you’d write code in Python, if you’d like. F# is indentation sensitive, has sane scoping, the dotnet CLI tooling, modules, pattern matching, easy and regular async, scripting, notebooks, static typing with type inference (meaning you don’t need to type annotate everything), etc. I would argue that of everything Python does, F# does it better and more. So if we accept that Python is the second best language at everything, then F# becomes a rather interesting language to consider.
- rewgs 4y ago
  Thank you! I've always wondered if/when I'd have a reason to check out F#, so now I do! :) Also, after I wrote the above comment, I checked out Nim, and it in many ways is exactly what I was describing. And Cython as well, even for all its (thankfully continuously reducing) weirdness.

by rewgs 4y ago

bmitc 4y ago

> If I could design my perfect language, it would be Python, just with clear variable declarations via a keyword such as `var`, optional true static typing and consts, and better tooling I highly recommend taking a look at F#. It is functional first, but it is multi paradigm in that it supports imperative and OOP programming just as well. You can write code in F# effectively how you’d write code in Python, if you’d like. F# is indentation sensitive, has sane scoping, the dotnet CLI tooling, modules, pattern matching, easy and regular async, scripting, notebooks, static typing with type inference (meaning you don’t need to type annotate everything), etc. I would argue that of everything Python does, F# does it better and more. So if we accept that Python is the second best language at everything, then F# becomes a rather interesting language to consider.

rewgs 4y ago
Thank you! I've always wondered if/when I'd have a reason to check out F#, so now I do! :) Also, after I wrote the above comment, I checked out Nim, and it in many ways is exactly what I was describing. And Cython as well, even for all its (thankfully continuously reducing) weirdness.