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Why People Should Learn Python

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Re: Why People Should Learn Python

#101

Post by collyw »

douche wrote: post #77
flexie wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that node.js is very liked on HN. Half the stories here are about Node.js. But I rarely see any positive mentioning on HN about c#, .NET, C++ or Java.

Those are the unsexy, but get-shit-done languages. I would hazard a guess that most people are familiar with them, and either are currently, or have in the past, used them for their day jobs. But they are on the plateau of productivity, rather than the peak of inflated expectations or trough of disillusionment, to use the Gartner model.

MS languages are used a lot more in large corporate style environments, while HN is startup focused where people are using open source more.

Re: Why People Should Learn Python

#102

Post by wrigby »

eddd wrote: post #52

I use python on daily basis for 5 years now. It's a really cool language, but: * Packaging is horrible * Releasing python code is a non-standarised nightmare. Every solution has it's own flaws * Big and complex projects in python are really hard to reason about * Poor support for concurrency (fixed in py3) Don't get me wrong, python is really cool as a proof-of-concept scripting language. But for mature and complex s…

I've been really happy using Pex[1] for releases, but it's not 100% perfect. It definitely feels less painful than other ways of doing things. At one point I used bdist_rpm for all of my projects, and then made sure I had all the dependencies installed (also through RPM, using FPM to create an RPM if it didn't exist). It was a nightmare.

1: https://github.com/pantsbuild/pex

Re: Why People Should Learn Python

#103

Post by verbatim »

didymospl wrote: post #79
hacker_9 wrote: post #19

Why you shouldn't learn Python: 1. In-consistant syntax. 2. The language uses exceptions to control flow of logic. 3. Divided community, since Python 3+ included breaking changes to the standard. 4. Un-discoverable APIs. You better hope the documentation is bulletproof else the API could change in any which way during runtime. 5. Poor error messages. If an import goes wrong you are not told why, and so on. 6. Ultimat…

8. Global Interpreter Lock in CPython

This isn't an issue with the language, it's an issue with the common implementation of the language. It will be remedied by either fixing CPython, or by switching to a different implementation.

(If neither happens, then I guess it isn't really a problem.)

Re: Why People Should Learn Python

#104

Post by dreistdreist »

collyw wrote: post #99
kayoone wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just to chime in on this, modern PHP is nothing like what people remember from the pre ROR days, i still use it to this day and the major frameworks and libs are really well written to the point i feel some are even over engineered and almost looking like Java (just take a look at the latest Guzzle PHP Library)

As my PHP fluent colleague said to me - don't bother learning PHP or you will end up having to fix (our) Wordpress sites and thats a nightmare. We have a Python application, and while its not written well, the PHP sites we have seem to be a fair bit worse even the ones not done in Wordpress.

Wordpress is horrible. Never going to touch that again (Senior PHP Dev myself) or anything else like it (Magento, Drupal,...).

And yes there is a lot of horrible PHP code out there, writting by bad developers. I guess newer or not as accessible languages don't have as many bad devs as PHP/JS.

But if you have good devs, I prefer a good PHP codebase to any other language that I have come across (I tried a lot of them).

Re: Why People Should Learn Python

#105

Post by thewhitetulip »

clumsysmurf wrote: post #4

A new & free introduction to Python from Jake VanderPlas can be gotten here: http://www.oreilly.com/programming/free/a-whirlwind-tour-of-... I was looking for a dense & concise guide to the language, but one of the most popular books "Learning Python 5e" by Lutz was too long @ 1600 pages.

His book is awesome! I wish I had it when I started Python. I had gone through the documentation tutorial thrice, the entire documentation once or twice. Started writing code and then understood python.

I found that learning Python is simple, mastering it is difficult, the magic which happens all the times makes it difficult to understand, which is the reason why static languages are awesome as less magic as possible.

Re: Why People Should Learn Python

#106

Post by [deleted] »

rdtsc wrote: post #8
iagooar wrote: post #2

Now that I have a chance to ask: I've always found the def __init__ method with 4 (!) underscores one of the ugliest things I've seen in a programming language. Don't get me wrong: I like Python and know it's truly good, but __why__??

It is a convention for protocols. There are others you see __len__, __eq__, __new__, __str__ and so on. It did seem odd at first (I learned, C, Java, C++) first. But then after a while saw how it fits in a consistent way in the language. Make many things simpler, fits with duck-typing, fits with how classes are constructed, and so on. Visually it stands out right away, you so you know by looking these are special met…

[deleted]

Re: Why People Should Learn Python

#107

Post by freehunter »

Rotareti wrote: post #58
hacker_9 wrote: post #19

Why you shouldn't learn Python: 1. In-consistant syntax. 2. The language uses exceptions to control flow of logic. 3. Divided community, since Python 3+ included breaking changes to the standard. 4. Un-discoverable APIs. You better hope the documentation is bulletproof else the API could change in any which way during runtime. 5. Poor error messages. If an import goes wrong you are not told why, and so on. 6. Ultimat…

>3. Divided community, since Python 3+ included breaking changes to the standard. I'm using Python since about half a year and for all I did this wasn't an issue. I just started with 3 and had the feeling everything around me was 3 as well. 3 was released in '08.

Unless you want to follow a tutorial or use a library. Most are up to 3 now, but not all. And especially with tutorials, the older ones don't always say.

Re: Why People Should Learn Python

#108

Post by barrkel »

K0nserv wrote: post #43

I switched to writing python as my main backend/scripting language with my new job. Previously I was using Ruby for most of this stuff with some Go. I must say that so far Python has been a vastly inferior experience for me. The languages are fairly similar all though I prefer the more talkative/english style of ruby and the use of functions over list and dict comprehension. The thing that really stands out to me tho…

I find chained enumerator / block style code much easier to write and understand than list / dict comprehensions too. It's probably the single biggest thing that I don't like about Python; lambdas are simply too awkward, but lambdas + monadic transformations are probably my primary mental abstractions for writing software these days.

Re: Why People Should Learn Python

#109

Post by enrmarc »

lcnmrn wrote: post #28
hacker_9 wrote: post #19

Why you shouldn't learn Python: 1. In-consistant syntax. 2. The language uses exceptions to control flow of logic. 3. Divided community, since Python 3+ included breaking changes to the standard. 4. Un-discoverable APIs. You better hope the documentation is bulletproof else the API could change in any which way during runtime. 5. Poor error messages. If an import goes wrong you are not told why, and so on. 6. Ultimat…

Name a single language that covers all those things and has a pretty syntax.

IMHO Ruby is a good candidate.

Re: Why People Should Learn Python

#110

Post by pawadu »

funkyy wrote: post #31
greenspot wrote: post #18

Is it just my feeling or are there languages which are preferred on HN? Indicators for languages which are liked by the HN community: - Positive stories get many upvotes and are instantly at the top of HN - Most comments are positive - Frequent coverage on HN about the language Indicators for languages which are not liked by the HN community: - Rants get many upvotes and are instantly at the top of HN - Most comments…

But you writing this as a bad thing? It's normal for a community to pick tools/solutions that are preferable. A lot of HN users are for example startup owners/creators so it's normal that they will prefer easy and semi-automated language like Python.

It would be interesting to hear from people maintaining code that came from these startups. I suspect they would have a very very different view of things :)

Maybe something investors should think about? Ehh, who am I kidding...

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