4 ms·

Perhaps the title should be "Why Python is good enough." Between this post and the preceding one (http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2013/06/09/choosing-a-python-re

by jzwinck 13y ago

Perhaps the title should be "Why Python is good enough." Between this post and the preceding one (http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2013/06/09/choosing-a-python-replacement-for-0install/ http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2013/06/09/choosing-a-python-r...), the takeaway for me is that the author didn't find sufficient benefit in any of the candidate languages to justify switching an existing product--perhaps not even a new product. It's true that Python can leave you with hidden crash bugs in unusual code paths, but the language brings so many benefits that it's easy to forgive this. And there seemed to be a vague concern about performance at the beginning of the article, but I didn't see anything substantive in that regard. So yay, let's all just keep using Python. Back to work.

tikhonj 13y ago
Except in the end, the author switches to OCaml[1]. So Python might be good enough, but he certainly found OCaml better. And since when are we willing to settle for good enough? [1]: http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2013/09/28/ocaml-objects/ http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2013/09/28/ocaml-objects/ (In fact, the author writes that he's basically willing to move to OCaml in the conclusion of this post.)
- jzwinck 13y ago
  "Good enough" the way I'm using it is nothing to be ashamed of. It is very difficult to find computing systems that are "good enough." Here are some of the motivating factors identified by the author at the outset of the search for a better language: - Canonical’s Colin Watson is worried about Python’s performance on mobile phones. - Marco Jez and Dave Abrahams proposed a C++ version. - Bastian Eicher would like a .NET version (though IronPython might work here). It doesn't seem like OCaml effectively addresses the above very well. On the other hand, here are some items the author liked about Python which may now be lost: - Widely known and easy to learn. - A large standard library. - You only need to ship source code (interpreted). - Can run inside a Java or .NET VM (using Jython/IronPython). - All current 0install contributors know it. - The current code is all Python and is well-tested. Of course the last item is the most alarming: see http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html (2000), Brooks' Mythical Man Month (1975) for the Second System Effect, etc.
  - DennisP 13y ago
    Although F# isn't OCaml it is fairly similar, and compatible if you skip certain features of each: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/179492/f-changes-to-ocaml http://stackoverflow.com/questions/179492/f-changes-to-ocaml
- Herbert2 13y ago
  I seriously doubt OCaml's benefits over Python are so great that they overweigh not being able to hire someone proficient in it.
  - tikhonj 13y ago
    In practice, people have found that hiring good programmers is actually easier with certain more obscure languages. Paul Graham, amusingly enough, called this the "Python paradox" because, back in 2004, Python was one of the obscure choices! Oh how things change. This certainly holds for OCaml as well. The main OCaml company I'm familiar with is Jane Street, and they certainly have no issues finding OCaml programmers. More importantly, many of their programmers come in with no OCaml experience or even no functional programming experience, and yet they have no trouble getting up to speed. In fact, these days they even teach their traders--often complete non-programmers--OCaml. And it works. I don't think I'd ever want to hire somebody incapable of learning a language like OCaml in a reasonable time frame. So yeah, this is not an issue in the least. If anything, it seems to work out more favorably for the companies using OCaml, Haskel and the like!
    - Herbert2 13y ago
      I'm pretty sure that at Jane Street you get to solve engaging problems and get paid 250K+. OCaml or not, they're not going to have problems with hiring.
- njharman 13y ago
  > since when are we willing to settle for good enough? Ever since we decided to get shit done, ship, finish our weekend project, etc. Ever since we first read "premature optimization is the root of all evil" and understood it as wide, abstract truism.
zanny 13y ago
The other thing is his only complaint (slowness) isn't really a problem. If you have a critical hot spot in your server code, extract it, implement it in C / C++, and use ctypes to call it.
- Demiurge 13y ago
  CFFI is the latest trendy way to call C, compatible with PyPy ;)
- dragandj 13y ago
  So, effectively, Python is not enough - you and your team have to be experts in C/C++ too?
  - zanny 13y ago
    If your team can't write a few hundred lines of critical section code in another language, or at least pick it up in a week - especially when the syntaxes are very similar (this isn't going from closure to java here) - you have bigger issues with your team than their language choice.
    - waps 13y ago
      Yep, no single language except C(/C++) is enough by itself (potential exception here is Java, but even there it's still useful). C has become the lingua franca of computing. You can call everything (except Go) from C and you can call C from everything. So you want to actually reuse standard libraries, you will want to know C. And if you're a good C hacker you'll know C++. I'm not saying you'll necessarily use it, but you'll know it. The vast majority of python programmers do not know how to call C/C++ code and are therefore limited to pure python libraries exclusively. They usually use writing to files and os.system() as an alternative. Needless to say, the performance of this approach can be questioned.
- thinkpad20 13y ago
  Having recently started doing python full-time, I would say that by far the biggest problem with python is its propensity to explode in your face. Code written in python seems so fragile; except for the most blatant bugs like syntax errors or too few arguments, nothing gets caught. You end up having to write tons of unit tests, which often expose bugs that would be trivially caught with any kind of typing. Performance is great, but code reliability is much more important. With python you get neither - just rapid development (slowed down by having to write a ton of tests) and expressiveness (which is excellent).

by jzwinck 13y ago

tikhonj 13y ago

Except in the end, the author switches to OCaml[1]. So Python might be good enough, but he certainly found OCaml better. And since when are we willing to settle for good enough? [1]: http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2013/09/28/ocaml-objects/ http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2013/09/28/ocaml-objects/ (In fact, the author writes that he's basically willing to move to OCaml in the conclusion of this post.)

jzwinck 13y ago
"Good enough" the way I'm using it is nothing to be ashamed of. It is very difficult to find computing systems that are "good enough." Here are some of the motivating factors identified by the author at the outset of the search for a better language: - Canonical’s Colin Watson is worried about Python’s performance on mobile phones. - Marco Jez and Dave Abrahams proposed a C++ version. - Bastian Eicher would like a .NET version (though IronPython might work here). It doesn't seem like OCaml effectively addresses the above very well. On the other hand, here are some items the author liked about Python which may now be lost: - Widely known and easy to learn. - A large standard library. - You only need to ship source code (interpreted). - Can run inside a Java or .NET VM (using Jython/IronPython). - All current 0install contributors know it. - The current code is all Python and is well-tested. Of course the last item is the most alarming: see http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html (2000), Brooks' Mythical Man Month (1975) for the Second System Effect, etc.
- DennisP 13y ago
  Although F# isn't OCaml it is fairly similar, and compatible if you skip certain features of each: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/179492/f-changes-to-ocaml http://stackoverflow.com/questions/179492/f-changes-to-ocaml
Herbert2 13y ago
I seriously doubt OCaml's benefits over Python are so great that they overweigh not being able to hire someone proficient in it.
- tikhonj 13y ago
  In practice, people have found that hiring good programmers is actually easier with certain more obscure languages. Paul Graham, amusingly enough, called this the "Python paradox" because, back in 2004, Python was one of the obscure choices! Oh how things change. This certainly holds for OCaml as well. The main OCaml company I'm familiar with is Jane Street, and they certainly have no issues finding OCaml programmers. More importantly, many of their programmers come in with no OCaml experience or even no functional programming experience, and yet they have no trouble getting up to speed. In fact, these days they even teach their traders--often complete non-programmers--OCaml. And it works. I don't think I'd ever want to hire somebody incapable of learning a language like OCaml in a reasonable time frame. So yeah, this is not an issue in the least. If anything, it seems to work out more favorably for the companies using OCaml, Haskel and the like!
  - Herbert2 13y ago
    I'm pretty sure that at Jane Street you get to solve engaging problems and get paid 250K+. OCaml or not, they're not going to have problems with hiring.
njharman 13y ago
> since when are we willing to settle for good enough? Ever since we decided to get shit done, ship, finish our weekend project, etc. Ever since we first read "premature optimization is the root of all evil" and understood it as wide, abstract truism.

zanny 13y ago

The other thing is his only complaint (slowness) isn't really a problem. If you have a critical hot spot in your server code, extract it, implement it in C / C++, and use ctypes to call it.

Demiurge 13y ago
CFFI is the latest trendy way to call C, compatible with PyPy ;)
dragandj 13y ago
So, effectively, Python is not enough - you and your team have to be experts in C/C++ too?
- zanny 13y ago
  If your team can't write a few hundred lines of critical section code in another language, or at least pick it up in a week - especially when the syntaxes are very similar (this isn't going from closure to java here) - you have bigger issues with your team than their language choice.
  - waps 13y ago
    Yep, no single language except C(/C++) is enough by itself (potential exception here is Java, but even there it's still useful). C has become the lingua franca of computing. You can call everything (except Go) from C and you can call C from everything. So you want to actually reuse standard libraries, you will want to know C. And if you're a good C hacker you'll know C++. I'm not saying you'll necessarily use it, but you'll know it. The vast majority of python programmers do not know how to call C/C++ code and are therefore limited to pure python libraries exclusively. They usually use writing to files and os.system() as an alternative. Needless to say, the performance of this approach can be questioned.
thinkpad20 13y ago
Having recently started doing python full-time, I would say that by far the biggest problem with python is its propensity to explode in your face. Code written in python seems so fragile; except for the most blatant bugs like syntax errors or too few arguments, nothing gets caught. You end up having to write tons of unit tests, which often expose bugs that would be trivially caught with any kind of typing. Performance is great, but code reliability is much more important. With python you get neither - just rapid development (slowed down by having to write a ton of tests) and expressiveness (which is excellent).