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Problems I Have with Python

darkf.github.io

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Re: Problems I Have with Python

#91

Post by y7 »

coldtea wrote: post #66
y7 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way I see a philosophy as being a broken one if it is founded on false premises, or internally inconsistent (or do you see a different way?). Which is the case with Python and why?

Instead of philosophy what you say applies more to logical statements (they are broken if they are founded on false premises or are internally inconsistent). A philosophy is more malleable and ad-hoc than axiomatic logical statements, and it can just be bad because it doesn't offer satisfactory solutions the problems it claims to have tackled, or because it sidesteps certain things, etc. But even that is taking the "…

> And why[while?] one might argue about the "better"

This is my point. Python's philosophy isn't "bad" in a universal sense (let alone broken). It's just that the author has a different philosophy for programming languages himself. And I find it short-sighted to regard other philosophies as "bad" or "flawed", simply because they do not match your own.

Re: Problems I Have with Python

#92

Post by coldtea »

yxhuvud wrote: post #85
coldtea wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very short-sightedly written. It sounds like the author just wants a language with a different philosophy Which is not a priori bad to want, especially if a language has a broken philosophy (or partially broken) to begin with.

Well, perhaps that means the right solution is not to complain about the language but to switch to Ruby (or Crystal) instead.. :P

Wouldn't that come with its own can of worms?

At some point, you try to fix what you think is already closer to what you want or what you have legacy code using it.

Re: Problems I Have with Python

#93

Post by coldtea »

y7 wrote: post #91
coldtea wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of philosophy what you say applies more to logical statements (they are broken if they are founded on false premises or are internally inconsistent). A philosophy is more malleable and ad-hoc than axiomatic logical statements, and it can just be bad because it doesn't offer satisfactory solutions the problems it claims to have tackled, or because it sidesteps certain things, etc. But even that is taking the "…

> And why[while?] one might argue about the "better" This is my point. Python's philosophy isn't "bad" in a universal sense (let alone broken). It's just that the author has a different philosophy for programming languages himself. And I find it short-sighted to regard other philosophies as "bad" or "flawed", simply because they do not match your own.

Yes, I meant to write "while" (my comments are usually hastily written while waiting some build to finish and full of typos).

>And I find it short-sighted to regard other philosophies as "bad" or "flawed", simply because they do not match your own.

Sure, but isn't a "all philosophies are equal" also misleading? Some philosophies can be inherently worse than one's own.

Re: Problems I Have with Python

#94

Post by mst »

darkf wrote: post #21
lmm wrote: post #19

Python's semantics are unlikely to ever be fast and most Python users have already worked around its speed issues. asyncio is new; python3 porting is happening. It seems unfair to complain that no real improvements are being made and also complain that these new things are immature. reduce being pushed behind an import is stupid, but it's only one import. lambda is fine, if you're writing in functional style you're u…

>lambda is fine, if you're writing in functional style you're using expressions for everything anyway. No, I /really would/ like to be able to write: foo.on_click(lambda: x += 1) The language not supporting this (when most others do) is just silly.

Huh. In perl (and javascript) x += 1 is an expression that returns the new value of x.

I guess this is another "simplification" along with the magic scoping model (I want perl's my/ES6's let damnit sulk) ...

Re: Problems I Have with Python

#95

Post by KirinDave »

darkf wrote: post #6
koliber wrote: post #4

Some of the author's points are valid. However, many are subjective preferences, and some are gripes without solutions, and others make it difficult to understand the author's underlying philosophy. My main critique is that the author added this statement that puts a negative, entitled, and naive tone on the whole article: >>> to which no real improvements are being made for some reason. (Incompetence? Politics? Both…

>However, many are subjective preferences Certainly, it is titled "Problems I Have" for a reason. :-) I do not expect everyone to agree with me, but it is what I feel I personally lack when using it quite a lot. > I imagine this statement could offend some of the smart and hard-working people who are working on improving the python language. That was certainly not my intention -- as stated, I do love the language and…

Once, I was on mailing lists with GVR and other language contributors, and have seem him go off deeply into functional programming. Some of the stuff he wrote went right over my head.

For someone who declares he hates functional programming even at the most basic levels of data stream manipulation, he knows it quite well.

I've always been frustrated with this disconnect, even more acutely than you have, because I know GVR is being disingenuous when he says, "I don't get it." He absolutely does. He thinks other people won't.

Re: Problems I Have with Python

#96

Post by pinjo »

xapata wrote: post #72
dev360 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was taken back by this rather harsh treatment of Python. Is it really realistic to 'have it all'? I'm fully aware that I'd have to go to crazier languages if I want parallelism or speed. For what Python is, it offers me reasonable tradeoffs (mostly slanted towards productivity).. Regarding the FP comments, since it lacks TCO, my take away has always been that Python can only ever become a quasi-functional language.…

The lack of tail-call optimization to make the CPython interpreter simpler and debugging easier by preserving the call stack. It was a choice, not an oversight.

From a debugging viewpoint, this does not make sense, there is usually no interesting information in the in between frames.

TCE can also make debugging easier, how useful is a stack trace of 1000 lines consisting of

  ...
  File "bla.py", line 4, in fib
    return fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2)
  File "bla.py", line 4, in fib
    return fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2)
  File "bla.py", line 4, in fib
    return fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2)
...

Not so much I think.

Re: Problems I Have with Python

#97

Post by bsg75 »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #49
koliber wrote: post #4

Some of the author's points are valid. However, many are subjective preferences, and some are gripes without solutions, and others make it difficult to understand the author's underlying philosophy. My main critique is that the author added this statement that puts a negative, entitled, and naive tone on the whole article: >>> to which no real improvements are being made for some reason. (Incompetence? Politics? Both…

Another big issue to keep in mind when critiquing Python, as opposed to e.g. JavaScript or Ruby, is that Python is used for so much more besides webdev/etc. stuff. So making changes that improve life for webdevs could suddenly make life worse for people using Python in high energy physics, or in chemical engineering, or in AI research, or a large number of other fields that a webdev might not even know exists. Every…

I would propose there are plenty of better solutions for webdev than Python, and that Pythons should remain focused on where it has been successful.

Re: Problems I Have with Python

#99

Post by BeetleB »

darkf wrote: post #21
lmm wrote: post #19

Python's semantics are unlikely to ever be fast and most Python users have already worked around its speed issues. asyncio is new; python3 porting is happening. It seems unfair to complain that no real improvements are being made and also complain that these new things are immature. reduce being pushed behind an import is stupid, but it's only one import. lambda is fine, if you're writing in functional style you're u…

>lambda is fine, if you're writing in functional style you're using expressions for everything anyway. No, I /really would/ like to be able to write: foo.on_click(lambda: x += 1) The language not supporting this (when most others do) is just silly.

It is amusing your lambda usage could be used by the Python community as a classic example of problems that can occur if they allowed what you want.

Mutating variables in a lambda is something abhorred in many functional languages.

Re: Problems I Have with Python

#100

Post by jack9 »

dev360 wrote: post #46
darkf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, many are subjective preferences Certainly, it is titled "Problems I Have" for a reason. :-) I do not expect everyone to agree with me, but it is what I feel I personally lack when using it quite a lot. > I imagine this statement could offend some of the smart and hard-working people who are working on improving the python language. That was certainly not my intention -- as stated, I do love the language and…

I was taken back by this rather harsh treatment of Python. Is it really realistic to 'have it all'? I'm fully aware that I'd have to go to crazier languages if I want parallelism or speed. For what Python is, it offers me reasonable tradeoffs (mostly slanted towards productivity).. Regarding the FP comments, since it lacks TCO, my take away has always been that Python can only ever become a quasi-functional language.…

> I was taken back by this rather harsh treatment of Python.

I am taken aback by the evangelical tone of Python enthusiasts, where is has warts intentionally maintained by the creator in the form of missing features.

If you want speed you go to any other scripting language (other than Ruby). I agree Python is mostly sane and naiively productive. That being said, it's a result of the syntax. Transpiling it to another language like Google did, shows that the underlying technology is not worth much.

> what languages do you think are better in comparison

Better in what way? PHP, Go, Pony, Javascript all have these features and the problems with the languages are not that people don't understand when they come across a switch or map.

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