4 ms·

Agreed on the "lack of declared types" thing. While I'm exceptionally fast writing new Python code, reading other people's Python code is a different story - pa

by go1979 12y ago

Agreed on the "lack of declared types" thing. While I'm exceptionally fast writing new Python code, reading other people's Python code is a different story - particularly, if they are new to Python. While there are a lot of concurrency options to not get you in trouble with the GIL, it is annoying that there is no canonical way or pythonic way of doing it. I saw people using things like monkey patching, which made my jaw drop. I had to implement Websockets recently and was totally confused as to the right way of doing it. I ended up evaluating NodeJS and Go for this function, and went with Go. Overall ... I love Python. It is perfect for small projects. For larger codebases (3KLOC+), I am slightly skeptical. It can be done but developers need to have quality code and strong test coverage.

goostavos 12y ago
My hobby project is something like 20k lines of Python. As long as you've got good tools (e.g. PyCharm), large codebases in Python are just about as easy to navigate as they would be in something like Java. Our codebase at work is.. phew, I don't even know, a couple hundred thousand lines of Python? Still, easy peasy to dig into. I will 100% agree on the websockets thing. Python is really failing in that area.
- tarentel 12y ago
  I code in Python from time to time but I am by no means an experts. For a small game server I used http://autobahn.ws http://autobahn.ws. Is there something wrong with this library? It was the easiest websocket library I found for pretty much any language. I plan to use it again for a larger project, more serious project. Is there any reason I should avoid using this and Python in particular for websocket stuff?
- reinhardt 12y ago
  A couple 100KLOC of Python, excluding 3rd party libraries? Other than Google or maybe NASA, I can't think of many places with so large python codebases.
  - goostavos 12y ago
    Medical industry.
  - gknoy 12y ago
    A 100k Python project doesn't sound that bad, especially with a modular design and a great IDE (PyCharm). Good tools make reading and navigating the codebase easy. At that point, it matters a lot less how big it is, because you can trust that your tools enable you to find the answers you seek. The project that I help maintain is a collection of Django apps totalling more than 700k lines. Thankfully I do not maintain all of it, but I am the primary maintainer for several sub-apps, totalling about 180k lines of Python. (This doesn't count the UI code, which is not in Python.) I'm the sole author for about 12% of the part I maintain (since I wrote some of the individual sub-apps), and am familiar enough to describe probably half of the rest. There are still some parts that I really have to puzzle out ("What happens on the codepath to generate those reports?"), but that part shrinks over time. The modular design that our original engineers used when they first built this system really helps, and the fantastic tooling in PyCharm is critical to my being able to navigate the codebase. Between grepping the python sources (thank god for shell aliases wrapping grep!) and my base familiarity with the system, I can start tracing with PyCharm's "find definition" to investigate things. Being able to run my own copy of the system, and put debugging breakpoints in (even in libraries!) is __amazing__.
  - falcolas 12y ago
    RightNow, acquired by Oracle. A couple of 100k+ line code bases in Python. Wasn't that hard to figure out what was expected when calling a function. Gets even easier when you use a code linter.
- thom_nic 12y ago
  I thought both Tornado and Twisted had decent websocket implementations?
zo1 12y ago
>"I had to implement Websockets recently and was totally confused as to the right way of doing it. I ended up evaluating NodeJS and Go for this function, and went with Go." You had to implement Websockets in Python? Instead of using an already-functioning, tested library?
- xorcist 12y ago
  At $work, we call these people "problem solvers".
- pc2g4d 12y ago
  I'm guessing they meant they implemented a websockets application, not the actual protocol.
  - tim333 12y ago
    I'm guessing that too as I had a similar issue in a hobby web project in Python. I wanted instant messaging between users and the time required to read the docs for twisted and port the whole thing over was off putting. I ended up making a message server with Node and Socket IO that's like 50 lines and sends messages to and from clients and the server. It works but it seems a bit of a kludge.
    - zo1 12y ago
      It's this simple if you had come across Tornado: class WebSocketHandler(tornado.websocket.WebSocketHandler): def on_message(self, message): self.write_message("Echo: %s" % message) I think the problem is that you chose a pretty heavyweight / complicated library.
      - tim333 12y ago
        Ta - maybe I'll give that a go. I didn't really try it. Actually I did glance at some docs for the framework I was using, web2py and it suggested some stuff with Tornado but one version only worked on chrome and another needed flash so presumably wouldn't work with iOS so I thought sod it - node/socket IO is easy and works anywhere.

by go1979 12y ago

goostavos 12y ago

My hobby project is something like 20k lines of Python. As long as you've got good tools (e.g. PyCharm), large codebases in Python are just about as easy to navigate as they would be in something like Java. Our codebase at work is.. phew, I don't even know, a couple hundred thousand lines of Python? Still, easy peasy to dig into. I will 100% agree on the websockets thing. Python is really failing in that area.

tarentel 12y ago
I code in Python from time to time but I am by no means an experts. For a small game server I used http://autobahn.ws http://autobahn.ws. Is there something wrong with this library? It was the easiest websocket library I found for pretty much any language. I plan to use it again for a larger project, more serious project. Is there any reason I should avoid using this and Python in particular for websocket stuff?
reinhardt 12y ago
A couple 100KLOC of Python, excluding 3rd party libraries? Other than Google or maybe NASA, I can't think of many places with so large python codebases.
- goostavos 12y ago
  Medical industry.
- gknoy 12y ago
  A 100k Python project doesn't sound that bad, especially with a modular design and a great IDE (PyCharm). Good tools make reading and navigating the codebase easy. At that point, it matters a lot less how big it is, because you can trust that your tools enable you to find the answers you seek. The project that I help maintain is a collection of Django apps totalling more than 700k lines. Thankfully I do not maintain all of it, but I am the primary maintainer for several sub-apps, totalling about 180k lines of Python. (This doesn't count the UI code, which is not in Python.) I'm the sole author for about 12% of the part I maintain (since I wrote some of the individual sub-apps), and am familiar enough to describe probably half of the rest. There are still some parts that I really have to puzzle out ("What happens on the codepath to generate those reports?"), but that part shrinks over time. The modular design that our original engineers used when they first built this system really helps, and the fantastic tooling in PyCharm is critical to my being able to navigate the codebase. Between grepping the python sources (thank god for shell aliases wrapping grep!) and my base familiarity with the system, I can start tracing with PyCharm's "find definition" to investigate things. Being able to run my own copy of the system, and put debugging breakpoints in (even in libraries!) is __amazing__.
- falcolas 12y ago
  RightNow, acquired by Oracle. A couple of 100k+ line code bases in Python. Wasn't that hard to figure out what was expected when calling a function. Gets even easier when you use a code linter.
thom_nic 12y ago
I thought both Tornado and Twisted had decent websocket implementations?

zo1 12y ago

>"I had to implement Websockets recently and was totally confused as to the right way of doing it. I ended up evaluating NodeJS and Go for this function, and went with Go." You had to implement Websockets in Python? Instead of using an already-functioning, tested library?

xorcist 12y ago
At $work, we call these people "problem solvers".
pc2g4d 12y ago
I'm guessing they meant they implemented a websockets application, not the actual protocol.
- tim333 12y ago
  I'm guessing that too as I had a similar issue in a hobby web project in Python. I wanted instant messaging between users and the time required to read the docs for twisted and port the whole thing over was off putting. I ended up making a message server with Node and Socket IO that's like 50 lines and sends messages to and from clients and the server. It works but it seems a bit of a kludge.
  - zo1 12y ago
    It's this simple if you had come across Tornado: class WebSocketHandler(tornado.websocket.WebSocketHandler): def on_message(self, message): self.write_message("Echo: %s" % message) I think the problem is that you chose a pretty heavyweight / complicated library.
    - tim333 12y ago
      Ta - maybe I'll give that a go. I didn't really try it. Actually I did glance at some docs for the framework I was using, web2py and it suggested some stuff with Tornado but one version only worked on chrome and another needed flash so presumably wouldn't work with iOS so I thought sod it - node/socket IO is easy and works anywhere.