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Have you tried F# or OCaml? I would argue that programming in Python is much harder than it is in F#. It is for me.

by bmitc 4y ago

kayodelycaon 4y ago
F# was one of the languages I was thinking about with I wrote my comment. :)
- bmitc 4y ago
  Very strange. When I write F# code, it almost directly mimics the problem statement. For example, I have implemented a fair amount of The Ray Tracer Challenge in F#, and it feels like I'm literally just writing down the description and tests from the book and have working code. Do you have a particular example of Python that you feel it shows off its pseudocode abilities? Because one can write F# almost identically to Python, so I just can't imagine Python being superior given that it lacks several domain modeling tools that F# has (records and discriminated unions).
  - akkad33 4y ago
    Speaking as a python dev with some experience in F# , one maybe minor point is the unfamiliar function call syntax that could throw off programmers not familiar with curried functions. Most other languages have parenthesis for function calls, so it can be a bit jarring to have a sequence of strings and not know whether the result is a function or a value. Furthermore some experienced F# devs love making custom symbols, which can also obfuscate the code
    - bmitc 4y ago
      > so it can be a bit jarring to have a sequence of strings and not know whether the result is a function or a value I think that the nice thing about F# is it is always a value. Function evaluation and currying can be taught fairly readily, especially given that once you get it, there's no gotchas. > Furthermore some experienced F# devs love making custom symbols, which can also obfuscate the code I agree that is painful when it occurs, but that style should absolutely be de-recommended and is so by Don Syme. I haven't really encountered it much in my personal development though (or I have avoided it).
airstrike 4y ago
I tried F# seriously for a few days and the tooling was so annoying to set up it made me crave going back to pip and virtualenvs I guess if you're a .NET developer that may be a non-issue, but I literally couldn't get all but the simplest examples to work and just gave up even though I loved the language and its design overall
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  > the tooling was so annoying to set up it made me crave going back to pip and virtualenvs Damn, if you wanted to go back to pip and virtual envs, then that's really saying something about how bad the tooling is, because pip and virtualenv are the bane of my existence when writing Python. Give me cargo or even npm and I'd be happy.
  - dopidopHN 4y ago
    Something I like about boring Java: I hardly ever think about the dependencies management tool.
    - satvikpendem 4y ago
      Java is even worse to be honest, you basically need an IDE for it, so much that VSCode literally ships a build with Java preconfigured. https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/java#_install-visual-studio-code-for-java https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/java#_install-v...
      - za3faran 4y ago
        You need an IDE for any language honestly. And I don't see that as a negative.
        anon291 4y ago
        I have never used an IDE for any language. Some languages make it very easy to set up. Python, Haskell, Rust, Node are extraordinarily straightforwards with basic CLI tooling. others like C++ are more complicated, but the compilers and tooling are extensively documented.

Have you tried F# or OCaml? I would argue that programming in Python is much harder than it is in F#. It is for me.

by bmitc 4y ago

Have you tried F# or OCaml? I would argue that programming in Python is much harder than it is in F#. It is for me.

kayodelycaon 4y ago

F# was one of the languages I was thinking about with I wrote my comment. :)

bmitc 4y ago
Very strange. When I write F# code, it almost directly mimics the problem statement. For example, I have implemented a fair amount of The Ray Tracer Challenge in F#, and it feels like I'm literally just writing down the description and tests from the book and have working code. Do you have a particular example of Python that you feel it shows off its pseudocode abilities? Because one can write F# almost identically to Python, so I just can't imagine Python being superior given that it lacks several domain modeling tools that F# has (records and discriminated unions).
- akkad33 4y ago
  Speaking as a python dev with some experience in F# , one maybe minor point is the unfamiliar function call syntax that could throw off programmers not familiar with curried functions. Most other languages have parenthesis for function calls, so it can be a bit jarring to have a sequence of strings and not know whether the result is a function or a value. Furthermore some experienced F# devs love making custom symbols, which can also obfuscate the code
  - bmitc 4y ago
    > so it can be a bit jarring to have a sequence of strings and not know whether the result is a function or a value I think that the nice thing about F# is it is always a value. Function evaluation and currying can be taught fairly readily, especially given that once you get it, there's no gotchas. > Furthermore some experienced F# devs love making custom symbols, which can also obfuscate the code I agree that is painful when it occurs, but that style should absolutely be de-recommended and is so by Don Syme. I haven't really encountered it much in my personal development though (or I have avoided it).

airstrike 4y ago

I tried F# seriously for a few days and the tooling was so annoying to set up it made me crave going back to pip and virtualenvs I guess if you're a .NET developer that may be a non-issue, but I literally couldn't get all but the simplest examples to work and just gave up even though I loved the language and its design overall

satvikpendem 4y ago
> the tooling was so annoying to set up it made me crave going back to pip and virtualenvs Damn, if you wanted to go back to pip and virtual envs, then that's really saying something about how bad the tooling is, because pip and virtualenv are the bane of my existence when writing Python. Give me cargo or even npm and I'd be happy.
- dopidopHN 4y ago
  Something I like about boring Java: I hardly ever think about the dependencies management tool.
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    Java is even worse to be honest, you basically need an IDE for it, so much that VSCode literally ships a build with Java preconfigured. https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/java#_install-visual-studio-code-for-java https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/java#_install-v...
    - za3faran 4y ago
      You need an IDE for any language honestly. And I don't see that as a negative.
      - anon291 4y ago
        I have never used an IDE for any language. Some languages make it very easy to set up. Python, Haskell, Rust, Node are extraordinarily straightforwards with basic CLI tooling. others like C++ are more complicated, but the compilers and tooling are extensively documented.