4 ms·

> 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).
  - imtringued 3y ago
    Most of the breaking changes did not justify upgrading.
  - hajile 3y ago
    I blame a lack of tools. JS devs have been transpiling for years now and it works. Python should have released a conversion tool that could automatically convert most stuff and identify the stuff it couldn't convert. This kind of directed upgrade would have made the process much easier for developers to actually accomplish.
    - LordDragonfang 3y ago
      I'm confused, because isn't that exactly what they did? What was wrong with 2to3? https://docs.python.org/3/library/2to3.html https://docs.python.org/3/library/2to3.html
      - hajile 3y ago
        It didn't work well at all in my experience. Given how much code was thrown out rather than ported, I'm guessing that I'm not alone.
  - viscanti 3y ago
    > Honestly I blame the community. Sure. The point is that a community can make things go poorly, with or without a BDFL.
_joel 3y ago
With a dodgy 2->3 migration pathway and far too many package managers.
- 015a 3y ago
  And despite that, still a top 3 most popular programming language on the planet. And another in that top 3 is the universally-derided Javascript. There's a lesson in there to learn. Its unfortunate that the people who need to learn it most likely won't.
  - LordDragonfang 3y ago
    It's important to note that JS has an unfair advantage in that if you want to write code that runs on the universal platform, you're forced to use either it or something that transpiles to it. Python reached where it was on merits alone. (That said, JS is actually a very versatile and almost-great language, getting better all the time)
    - timschmidt 3y ago
      Python reached where it is because university CS programs which had previously been teaching Java reached for a new language.
      - LordDragonfang 3y ago
        Most universities I knew were still teaching Java well into python's rise to popularity a decade ago. Python got where it is by focusing on being simple, easy, and nice to use. Seriously take a look at PEP-20 sometime: https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/ https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/ Things like "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it." just was such a breath of fresh air in language design.
        _joel 3y ago
        I take it they didn't extend that to the package managers :)

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).
- imtringued 3y ago
  Most of the breaking changes did not justify upgrading.
- hajile 3y ago
  I blame a lack of tools. JS devs have been transpiling for years now and it works. Python should have released a conversion tool that could automatically convert most stuff and identify the stuff it couldn't convert. This kind of directed upgrade would have made the process much easier for developers to actually accomplish.
  - LordDragonfang 3y ago
    I'm confused, because isn't that exactly what they did? What was wrong with 2to3? https://docs.python.org/3/library/2to3.html https://docs.python.org/3/library/2to3.html
    - hajile 3y ago
      It didn't work well at all in my experience. Given how much code was thrown out rather than ported, I'm guessing that I'm not alone.
- viscanti 3y ago
  > Honestly I blame the community. Sure. The point is that a community can make things go poorly, with or without a BDFL.

_joel 3y ago

With a dodgy 2->3 migration pathway and far too many package managers.

015a 3y ago
And despite that, still a top 3 most popular programming language on the planet. And another in that top 3 is the universally-derided Javascript. There's a lesson in there to learn. Its unfortunate that the people who need to learn it most likely won't.
- LordDragonfang 3y ago
  It's important to note that JS has an unfair advantage in that if you want to write code that runs on the universal platform, you're forced to use either it or something that transpiles to it. Python reached where it was on merits alone. (That said, JS is actually a very versatile and almost-great language, getting better all the time)
  - timschmidt 3y ago
    Python reached where it is because university CS programs which had previously been teaching Java reached for a new language.
    - LordDragonfang 3y ago
      Most universities I knew were still teaching Java well into python's rise to popularity a decade ago. Python got where it is by focusing on being simple, easy, and nice to use. Seriously take a look at PEP-20 sometime: https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/ https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/ Things like "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it." just was such a breath of fresh air in language design.
      - _joel 3y ago
        I take it they didn't extend that to the package managers :)