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Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

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Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#11

Post by donquichotte »

Rapzid wrote: post #5

I've recently had to start writing python professionally and I'm not super impressed. My previous python experience was writing small services and fixing others code. Now that I'm working on larger "apps" it feels like a 90's language with all the rough edges and warts. I'd rather being working in a language with better language services and tooling, but python has numpy and all these data viz libraries so whatcha go…

It IS a 90s language! ;-)

My main issue with Python is distribution. Oh, you're using it on Windows? No worries, just install matplotlib using pip. Oh wait, you need to install cygwin and a C compiler and for some weird reason it won't compile but no worries there is a website with Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python Extension Packages but it's still not working....

Numerical computations and plotting are also my prime use cases for Python. IMO it's the only real competition to Matlab in this area.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#12

Post by Zancarius »

mkesper wrote: post #6
Rapzid wrote: post #5

I've recently had to start writing python professionally and I'm not super impressed. My previous python experience was writing small services and fixing others code. Now that I'm working on larger "apps" it feels like a 90's language with all the rough edges and warts. I'd rather being working in a language with better language services and tooling, but python has numpy and all these data viz libraries so whatcha go…

What do you mean by "language services and tooling"? Python 3.5+ supports gradual typing, too so I'd be interested in a real comparison to Typescript.

I'm wondering if the OP is referring at least partially to the state of Python packaging. There was an HN article just a couple weeks ago, I think, along these lines that may be contributing to the complaint.

It seems odd to me given that pip has improved rather dramatically over the last 1-2 years (at least on *nix), so perhaps you're right regarding typing.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#13

Post by pmontra »

DodgyEggplant wrote: post #3

After years with Python, it's still a mystery to me how the same constructs are so intuitive and readable in Python (think it acceptable that they are less in C++, Java or javascript etc, even Ruby)

It might depend on your previous history. My development arc was C, Perl, Java, Ruby, Python with Javascript in parallel. Python is not particularly intuitive after 10 years of Ruby. Actually it's a mistery to me how people can like such a complicated language. However I got only customers using Python last year so I must make me like it at least a little. I keep thinking I could have been very unlucky and found some Java projects instead.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#14

Post by toyg »

donquichotte wrote: post #11
Rapzid wrote: post #5

I've recently had to start writing python professionally and I'm not super impressed. My previous python experience was writing small services and fixing others code. Now that I'm working on larger "apps" it feels like a 90's language with all the rough edges and warts. I'd rather being working in a language with better language services and tooling, but python has numpy and all these data viz libraries so whatcha go…

It IS a 90s language! ;-) My main issue with Python is distribution. Oh, you're using it on Windows? No worries, just install matplotlib using pip. Oh wait, you need to install cygwin and a C compiler and for some weird reason it won't compile but no worries there is a website with Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python Extension Packages but it's still not working.... Numerical computations and plotting are also my…

The problem you describe has been fixed with precompiled wheels. As long as projects make the effort to package them, there is no need for compilers now.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#15

Post by afashglaksnhb »

toyg wrote: post #14
donquichotte wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It IS a 90s language! ;-) My main issue with Python is distribution. Oh, you're using it on Windows? No worries, just install matplotlib using pip. Oh wait, you need to install cygwin and a C compiler and for some weird reason it won't compile but no worries there is a website with Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python Extension Packages but it's still not working.... Numerical computations and plotting are also my…

The problem you describe has been fixed with precompiled wheels. As long as projects make the effort to package them, there is no need for compilers now.

Don't know why this was downvoted. NB you need to upgrade your pip to the latest to use this if you are on Ubuntu LTS though. (But you are working in virtualenvs so this isn't a problem right?)

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#16

Post by inlineint »

donquichotte wrote: post #11
Rapzid wrote: post #5

I've recently had to start writing python professionally and I'm not super impressed. My previous python experience was writing small services and fixing others code. Now that I'm working on larger "apps" it feels like a 90's language with all the rough edges and warts. I'd rather being working in a language with better language services and tooling, but python has numpy and all these data viz libraries so whatcha go…

It IS a 90s language! ;-) My main issue with Python is distribution. Oh, you're using it on Windows? No worries, just install matplotlib using pip. Oh wait, you need to install cygwin and a C compiler and for some weird reason it won't compile but no worries there is a website with Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python Extension Packages but it's still not working.... Numerical computations and plotting are also my…

I think that Continuum Analytics does incredible work in this direction, so it is really possible to just do `conda install matplotlib` and install matplotlib on any distribution.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#17

Post by dorkygator »

greyman wrote: post #10
daveguy wrote: post #4

The unofficial python 2.8 is here: https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon

But didn't Guido say that everything what could be backported was already backported? > There are a small handful of backwards incompatibilities introduced by Tauthon. How to understand this? Anyway, something like this was expected to happen. I wonder if it wouldn't be better if Guido would not halt python 2 development and just let it evolve.

He left the door open for the community to continue work on Python 2. It looks like somebody took up that offer.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#18

Post by [deleted] »

greyman wrote: post #10
daveguy wrote: post #4

The unofficial python 2.8 is here: https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon

But didn't Guido say that everything what could be backported was already backported? > There are a small handful of backwards incompatibilities introduced by Tauthon. How to understand this? Anyway, something like this was expected to happen. I wonder if it wouldn't be better if Guido would not halt python 2 development and just let it evolve.

[deleted]

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#19

Post by [deleted] »

greyman wrote: post #10
daveguy wrote: post #4

The unofficial python 2.8 is here: https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon

But didn't Guido say that everything what could be backported was already backported? > There are a small handful of backwards incompatibilities introduced by Tauthon. How to understand this? Anyway, something like this was expected to happen. I wonder if it wouldn't be better if Guido would not halt python 2 development and just let it evolve.

[deleted]

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#20

Post by preordained »

pmontra wrote: post #13
DodgyEggplant wrote: post #3

After years with Python, it's still a mystery to me how the same constructs are so intuitive and readable in Python (think it acceptable that they are less in C++, Java or javascript etc, even Ruby)

It might depend on your previous history. My development arc was C, Perl, Java, Ruby, Python with Javascript in parallel. Python is not particularly intuitive after 10 years of Ruby. Actually it's a mistery to me how people can like such a complicated language. However I got only customers using Python last year so I must make me like it at least a little. I keep thinking I could have been very unlucky and found some…

Yup. I'm with you. For my money, Ruby could fill exactly the space Python does and do it better...but Python has too much steam in its niche and Ruby got pigeon-holed as a web language; such is life.
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