5 ms·

That being said... python had a BDFL and look how that turned out. I think designing and evolving any living programming language is just one of the hardest pr

by davedx 3y ago

That being said... python had a BDFL and look how that turned out. I think designing and evolving any living programming language is just one of the hardest problems out there. Incredible blog post indeed, was awesome to read it.

sph 3y ago
A dictator might just have terrible ideas. His dislike for functional constructs didn't do Python any favour, but now that he's gone I see Python is adding the kitchen sink as well. I haven't kept up with the language since that pattern matching proposal.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  People who are deeply into programming languages seem to like FP too much. That and theories of type systems. Python is doing some great things, but also just fucking around a lot.
  - imtringued 3y ago
    As someone who doesn't like Python. Python's problems have almost nothing to do the lack of functional programming. It does have the worst lambda syntax of any programming language but that is about it.
- alwaysbeconsing 3y ago
  > A dictator might just have terrible ideas. If they're all terrible, then the language won't appeal to anyone and will die off naturally. On the other hand if everyone gets to add their favorite terrible idea, there may still be enough non-terrible parts to appeal to enough people to keep momentum.
bazoom42 3y ago
> That being said... python had a BDFL and look how that turned out. One of the most popular and succesful languages, and a major force in AI innovation?
- viscanti 3y ago
  The py2 to py3 transition seems to have gone very poorly, although most of the pain from that is behind us now.
  - jefftk 3y ago
    That was a seriously bad call, but it was a single one and he's made a ton of other decisions over the years.
    - rirze 3y ago
      who's "he"?
      - wez470 3y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum
      - estebank 3y ago
        Guido van Rossum
  - thiht 3y ago
    Honestly I blame the community. The transition was slow (Python 2 was supported in parallel to 3 for a long period of time so there was more than enough time to migrate), relatively easy to do, and brought huge benefits to the ecosystem. It could have been done and forgotten in 2 years if some community members had not been dicks about it.
    - svieira 3y ago
      It really seemed that the issue was mostly "Unicode is really hard if you haven't thought _deeply_ about it" because application code, library and framework code, _and_ "system" Python code had to go through several iterations of "here's how to do it right" before something reasonable came out that solved issues for most / all stakeholders. And the Swift / Raku people are still sitting on the sidelines smiling, knowing that there are a lot more "lenses" to view text through that Python doesn't make easy (but neither does Haskell, JS, or Java, so there's good company in good-enough-for-now land).
lmm 3y ago
Python took a clear turn for the worse when it stopped following the BDFL model.

by davedx 3y ago

sph 3y ago

A dictator might just have terrible ideas. His dislike for functional constructs didn't do Python any favour, but now that he's gone I see Python is adding the kitchen sink as well. I haven't kept up with the language since that pattern matching proposal.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
People who are deeply into programming languages seem to like FP too much. That and theories of type systems. Python is doing some great things, but also just fucking around a lot.
- imtringued 3y ago
  As someone who doesn't like Python. Python's problems have almost nothing to do the lack of functional programming. It does have the worst lambda syntax of any programming language but that is about it.
alwaysbeconsing 3y ago
> A dictator might just have terrible ideas. If they're all terrible, then the language won't appeal to anyone and will die off naturally. On the other hand if everyone gets to add their favorite terrible idea, there may still be enough non-terrible parts to appeal to enough people to keep momentum.

bazoom42 3y ago

> That being said... python had a BDFL and look how that turned out. One of the most popular and succesful languages, and a major force in AI innovation?

viscanti 3y ago
The py2 to py3 transition seems to have gone very poorly, although most of the pain from that is behind us now.
- jefftk 3y ago
  That was a seriously bad call, but it was a single one and he's made a ton of other decisions over the years.
  - rirze 3y ago
    who's "he"?
    - wez470 3y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum
    - estebank 3y ago
      Guido van Rossum
- thiht 3y ago
  Honestly I blame the community. The transition was slow (Python 2 was supported in parallel to 3 for a long period of time so there was more than enough time to migrate), relatively easy to do, and brought huge benefits to the ecosystem. It could have been done and forgotten in 2 years if some community members had not been dicks about it.
  - svieira 3y ago
    It really seemed that the issue was mostly "Unicode is really hard if you haven't thought _deeply_ about it" because application code, library and framework code, _and_ "system" Python code had to go through several iterations of "here's how to do it right" before something reasonable came out that solved issues for most / all stakeholders. And the Swift / Raku people are still sitting on the sidelines smiling, knowing that there are a lot more "lenses" to view text through that Python doesn't make easy (but neither does Haskell, JS, or Java, so there's good company in good-enough-for-now land).

lmm 3y ago

Python took a clear turn for the worse when it stopped following the BDFL model.