Ask HN: Is Python dying? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#361

Post by pyre » Tue, Feb 16, 2016, 11:39 PM UTC

awwaiid wrote: post #236

pyre wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that it is not so easy to port Perl5 code to Perl6 as porting Python from 2 and 3. Is this really the case? https://github.com/niner/Inline-Perl5 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9173043/how-can-i-use-per...

Yes this is the case; Through libraries we are trying to make it easy to CALL perl5 (and ruby and python and...) modules from Perl 6. But porting -- aka translating -- is another matter. Mostly it requires a similar amount of effort as if you are translating your program to any other dynamic language for nontrivial programs. My understanding is that LOTS of Python2 programs work fine in Python3 with no (or very trivi…

While this is true, a good deal of porting could be managed by packaging up old code into Perl5 modules and using Perl6 to glue it together, no?

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#362

Post by BuckRogers » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 2:50 AM UTC

smegel wrote: post #85

> Go for systems and backend Certain sorts of systems and certain sorts of backends maybe. There is a reason people prefer dynamic languages for web based backends for example - the amount of text mangling and arbitrary data structure manipulation becomes a serious headache in a compiled language, be it Go, C/C++ or what-have-you. I work on a large system written entirely in Python -we've considered introducing Go to…

>I work on a large system written entirely in Python -we've considered introducing Go to speed up certain processes, but Python will remain the foundation for the foreseeable future.

Consider doing what Dropbox does, use PyPy for those few processes that need more CPU performance. They run 2.7 for most things and PyPy where they need to.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#363

Post by lladnar » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 10:27 AM UTC

pmarreck wrote: post #257

2bitencryption wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My prediction is that one day some alternative Python interpreter (Stackless, or GIL-less, or which compiles ahead of time to machine code, or something like that) will go from being merely an interesting concept to a dominant runtime. Python is such an excellent language, and it only has a small handful of elements holding it back from being even better. I feel like eventually something has to give, and either there…

Object-oriented languages are Dead Men Walking due to the problem of global mutable state management in any medium- to large-sized codebase, coupled with dependency/inheritance hell, leading to complexity hell, leading to geometric progression of tech debt. Compounding this is the lack of good unit test suites across the board, meaning that even if you write absolutely perfectly tested and maintainable Python (or Rub…

WeddeddSsx

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#364

Post by mydpy » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 3:24 PM UTC

If anything, it is growing. Large companies are now adopting Python.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#365

Post by ekimekim » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 5:06 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #172

ekimekim wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4. Some people have made an informed decision and prefer python 2 over python 3, even without considering dependencies/migration cost. (cue the downvotes)

If you get downvoted for that it's because Python 3 is objectively better than 2 in every way other than the points I listed above... Seriously. List one feature Python 2 has that Python 3 doesn't?

Good support for strings that you want to treat as text but have unknown encoding, the biggest example of which is all OS strings on posix systems. Being forced to treat all strings that aren't guarenteed to be valid unicode as a series of integers makes everything harder - parsing text-based protocols, text-based file formats, hell last I checked it was very non-trivial to write a version of "ls" which didn't crash if the directory contained a file called "\xff".

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#366

Post by datashaman » Thu, Feb 18, 2016, 5:41 AM UTC

FlyingSnake wrote: post #326

markatkinson wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And really enjoyable... That's what really counts right?

Clearly you haven't worked with EXRM and the 'no documentation outside hello-world' Ecto query. /s

Seems comprehensive: http://hexdocs.pm/ecto/Ecto.Query.html

Disclaimer: complete Elixir noob

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#367

Post by Rapidwire » Thu, Feb 18, 2016, 9:44 AM UTC

Alphasite_ wrote: post #296

2bitencryption wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My prediction is that one day some alternative Python interpreter (Stackless, or GIL-less, or which compiles ahead of time to machine code, or something like that) will go from being merely an interesting concept to a dominant runtime. Python is such an excellent language, and it only has a small handful of elements holding it back from being even better. I feel like eventually something has to give, and either there…

I really want ZiPy to take off, a fast Python 3.5 for the JVM would be lovely.

You mean "ZipPy": https://bitbucket.org/ssllab/zippy.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#368

Post by pkenjora » Thu, Feb 18, 2016, 8:25 PM UTC

Python has always been under attack because people using it are busy making things instead of wasting time with language debates.

Just because Python doesn't have zealots doesn't men its dying.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#369

Post by Per_Bothner » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 5:17 AM UTC

eva1984 wrote: post #131

pmoriarty wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't tried Scheme.

I don't know it, yet. But I don't know whether it provide the range of libraries Python can provide me with.

If you use Kawa Scheme (http://www.gnu.org/software/kawa) then you get a number of extensions (beyond standards-compliant R7RS), high performance, and access to all the libraries that run on the Java platform.