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After over a decade of Python as my language of choice, I have stopped developing new projects with it, directly as a result of its instability through releases

After over a decade of Python as my language of choice, I have stopped developing new projects with it, directly as a result of its instability through releases. Bit rot is a thing, and Python routinely causes more than seems reasonable.

CoastalCoder 3y ago
What alternative(s) are you using instead?
- voakbasda 3y ago
  I begrudgingly have moved to Go. Mostly because my current day job uses it a lot, so I have been paid to pick up more knowledge about its ecosystem. Don’t get me wrong: there are plenty of things to dislike about it (or any language, once you start pulling that thread). However, they have made a much stronger commitment to avoid breaking backward compatibility.
brnt 3y ago
Really? I even ported 2.7 code back when 3.6 got good, and it was all far simpler than I had dreaded. I might be not as eager as some to learn new features though, but I am also not so conservative that I won't do things some new way, especially if the old way is being deprecated (but so far warnings have always given me plenty of heads up). Quite the opposite, I like Python as much as I did when we first met. Nothing is without warts, but they are rarely really problematic for me in Python.
- medo-bear 3y ago
  If your energy levels drop, or you lose interest, ports will become harder. When you write code that has a short life span none of this matters. But when your software has a several year or decade life expectancy it will matter. Also economics plays a role. If we have a real economic downturn in IT bit rot will become a huge problem for many small businesses.
  - brnt 3y ago
    If any effort is too much, you're basically stuck on a very select set of dead-ish languages or dialects thereof. But I'm not sure that's a more viable approach then using a language that is still pretty great about backwards compatibility.

CoastalCoder 3y ago

What alternative(s) are you using instead?

voakbasda 3y ago
I begrudgingly have moved to Go. Mostly because my current day job uses it a lot, so I have been paid to pick up more knowledge about its ecosystem. Don’t get me wrong: there are plenty of things to dislike about it (or any language, once you start pulling that thread). However, they have made a much stronger commitment to avoid breaking backward compatibility.

brnt 3y ago

Really? I even ported 2.7 code back when 3.6 got good, and it was all far simpler than I had dreaded. I might be not as eager as some to learn new features though, but I am also not so conservative that I won't do things some new way, especially if the old way is being deprecated (but so far warnings have always given me plenty of heads up). Quite the opposite, I like Python as much as I did when we first met. Nothing is without warts, but they are rarely really problematic for me in Python.

medo-bear 3y ago
If your energy levels drop, or you lose interest, ports will become harder. When you write code that has a short life span none of this matters. But when your software has a several year or decade life expectancy it will matter. Also economics plays a role. If we have a real economic downturn in IT bit rot will become a huge problem for many small businesses.
- brnt 3y ago
  If any effort is too much, you're basically stuck on a very select set of dead-ish languages or dialects thereof. But I'm not sure that's a more viable approach then using a language that is still pretty great about backwards compatibility.