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Ask HN: Is Python dying?

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Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#301

Post by BuckRogers »

dudul wrote: post #21

I think it's HN echo chamber. A lot of articles here about new exciting technologies, but when you look at job postings for example this is not the same song. I'm very excited about Elixir for example. There is a new Elixir blog post/article/github repo posted on HN every day, you would think that Elixir is the new cool thing. Well, not easy to find companies that actually use it.

Elixir is so interesting (to me) because if a company does adopt it, there's almost no risk. I always view tech from business-tinted glasses. Elixir is a winner from both sides.

It's built on technology older than Java. I'm not sure most people need what it offers immediately, but it's certainly a safer bet than most new things. Including CPython3 and Perl6.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#302

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

andybak wrote: post #49
Animats wrote: post #27

I like Python, but it's gone downhill. Python was doing just fine until Python's little tin god came up with Python 3 and tried to drive a stake through the heart of Python 2. That backfired, badly; six years on, Python 2 still has far more production use than Python 3. (No, it's not about Unicode. Python 2.6 and later do Unicode just fine. I've written sizeable all-Unicode systems in Python 2.6. It's just that in 3.…

Shame you started with "Python's little tin god" as it meant I took everything else you said less seriously.

It's a little over the top, but I do agree that python has succeeded despite van Rossum, not because of him.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#303

Post by ArtB »

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…

Object oriented does not require state: it requires encapsulation. I incorporate as much immutability into my code as possible and I would say most of our objects never have their state changed from instantiation and I write Enterprise Java all day long.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#304

Post by Scarblac »

drvortex wrote: post #199
cyphar wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Though it is strong in data-heavy environments (with all it's issues nonetheless). Which is why numpy and scipy are so full-featured and pretty damn fast.

Techincally, Numpy and SciPy are C and Fortran extensions to Python, not Python code.

Libraries are what make a language.

The major feature of Python for me is that all its various open source modules for anything n-dimensional (matrices, image processing, GIS, machine learning, etc etc) all use the same data structure: the Numpy array. It's basically part of the standard library that is developed outside of it for pragmatic reasons. And with the speed of Fortran array operations.

That's something that only Matlab really has as well, but Python is much better in other aspects.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#305

Post by BuckRogers »

Python2 is not dying, its momentum is the main reason for Python's continued meteoric rise. Python3 is languishing though. At roughly 10% of Python right now but might(?) pick up that slack once Python2 starts to die.

I've always used Python, but I'm starting to wonder if I didn't back the wrong horse. I've been dabbling with Erlang as my side-language for a years, and Elixir is extremely intriguing to me. I'm considering using Ruby for a new project simply because the syntax is closer to Elixir. A Ruby+Elixir shop makes a ton of sense.

I think the better question would be "is Python losing focus?". The answer to that would be yes. Which includes not only the ~8 year Python3 debacle that's ~10% complete from a usage standpoint, but also the Python3 feature soup. They've just added a 4th string formatting method in Python 3.6.[0] I don't even have words for Python3's feature soup, it's absurd in its own right.

[0]http://learning-python.com/books/python-changes-2014-plus.ht...

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#306

Post by eva1984 »

tavert wrote: post #294
eva1984 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Julia just want to replace Python as the glue interface, it seems to have no chance winning...What it can do, as a glue layer, that Python cannot do?

It's much easier and lower-overhead to call into C, Fortran, and soon even C++, from Julia than it is from Python. If there's a library in Python but not yet in Julia, it's really easy to call into Python from Julia. What you can do in Julia that you can't do in Python is write high-performance library code in the high level language. If you need to write custom code that isn't just using stock numpy or scipy algorit…

Thanks for explaining this.

As to my own experience dealing with data, the degree of freedom, as basically a programmer, is small. Specifically, I have to think and bear tools in my mind from the start. Which might not be ideal, but cant avoid anyway.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#307

Post by merb »

hibikir wrote: post #203
tayo42 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scala seems to have some momentum. I've wondered if the companies that have adopted it are using it like jvm haskell or a just a better java?

Few people are treating it like jvm haskell in production, although a certain subset of really loud people wish it wasn't otherwise. They all tend to work in the same OSS projects, while the rest of the community does their best to pretend they don't exist. I think that the reality of modern scala is that, while there is in no way a unified use of the language, the way to use Scala is in its own, intermediate locatio…

Actually sealed traits and case object/case classes and pattern matching is really useful for http programming.

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#308

Post by [deleted] »

aioprisan wrote: post #138
hoodoof wrote: post #36

http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=python Showing 1-10 of 169,970 Python jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=ruby Showing 1-10 of 128,305 Ruby jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=java Showing 1-10 of 190,126 Java jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=golang Showing 1-10 of 219 Golang jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=julia Showing 1-10 of 206 Julia jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=%22pyth…

http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=php Showing 1-10 of 144,251 Php jobs

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#309

Post by [deleted] »

hoodoof wrote: post #36

http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=python Showing 1-10 of 169,970 Python jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=ruby Showing 1-10 of 128,305 Ruby jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=java Showing 1-10 of 190,126 Java jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=golang Showing 1-10 of 219 Golang jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=julia Showing 1-10 of 206 Julia jobs http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=%22pyth…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is Python dying?

#310

Post by 15155 »

balamaci wrote: post #272
pmarreck wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah they will still probably be labeled as dead man walking for the next 20 years long after your FP langue de jour will have outlasted it's pristine days and got damned to hell by the devs having to maintain the programs written in it. Don't get me wrong if you are currently doing consultancy business for a niche FP language far for me to blow the wistle to companies that instead of paying your fees and hefty salar…

If you're working a problem capable of being solved by two $10/mo DO VMs, you're working a problem that can be solved in /any/ language.
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