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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]

#131

Post by lmm »

brianwawok wrote: post #130
lmm wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Compile time. In a tight dev loop, you can run Unit tests in say 2 seconds in Python, vs 15, 30, 60, 90 seconds in Scala (depending on code base size) True, but 95%+ of the issues you'd catch with unit testing in Python you catch during compilation in Scala, and that can be an incremental compile rather than a full compile. So once you have a properly set up dev environment the feedback loop takes less than 2 se…

> True, but 95%+ of the issues you'd catch with unit testing in Python you catch during compilation in Scala, and that can be an incremental compile rather than a full compile. So once you have a properly set up dev environment the feedback loop takes less than 2 seconds in practice, though the one-off setup to reach that point is a lot fiddlier than for Python. Not sure I agree with either of those. Compiler catches…

> especially when dealing with external libs or APIs where compile can't catch anything.

It can if those libraries/APIs are written to use types effectively. In the early days of Scala there weren't many native libraries that did so, but there's a pretty established native-to-Scala ecosystem these days.

> To each their own. I despise SPAs, and neither code them nor use them if I can help it.

Um, agreed, which is exactly why I love Wicket ? I think we must've misunderstood each other at some level.

> Meh. In practice, Python is very terse also. Java vs Scala is a big line of code difference. I have not found Scala vs Python is that different.

In a lot of code I agree, but I think the cases where you will see "crazy scalaz or something" are precisely those cases where those things save a fair few lines. If you can write it in a readable line of Python, that will usually translate directly into an equally readable line of Scala.

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

#132

Post by augustk »

hota_mazi wrote: post #91
willtim wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The syntax is trying to look friendly and familiar, but ultimately it's an abuse of a standard mathematical notation that has meant something else for hundreds of years. The original meaning, an equality relation, is still being taught to high-school children today, typically before python is forced upon them.

You're over dramatizing. The human brain is very good at interpreting things in context and it's really trivial for even middle school kids to understand that `=` in math is different from `=` in programming. Do you want an example of something that beginner programmers struggle with? Pointers.

But you still need a symbol for the equality operator, so not choosing "=" for that seems rather absurd. It's comparable to making the choice to use + for string concatenation and ++ for (numeric) addition.

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

#133

Post by jerf »

willtim wrote: post #122
jerf wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but why reuse the operator in the first place? Is it really making it "easier" for the beginner" That's a different question than "Has it confused a whole lot of high school students?" "The misuse of the equality operator is only one minor detail, but if people care so little about such details, how can they be trusted to look after the more important ones?" Assuming by "more important ones" you mean more important…

You sound very defeatist. There is world of difference between how much useful mathematics there is in Haskell compared to Python.

I see you are one of those people who can't stick to a topic for more than one message and constantly change the specific topic of conversation rather than engage in debate. Especially when my own message already carried the idea that Haskell and Python vary substantially in their mathematical content. Carry on then.

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

#134

Post by sametmax »

BrendanD wrote: post #128
sametmax wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to brag and say the best blog I know about Python is mine. But it's in french so you will have to take my word for it. Yet it has more than 300 articles about Python and covering at length stuff from decorators to metaclass and even a fat 8 parts manual on OOP. Maybe google translate can help.

linky?

http://sametmax.com/

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

#135

Post by willtim »

jerf wrote: post #133
willtim wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound very defeatist. There is world of difference between how much useful mathematics there is in Haskell compared to Python.

I see you are one of those people who can't stick to a topic for more than one message and constantly change the specific topic of conversation rather than engage in debate. Especially when my own message already carried the idea that Haskell and Python vary substantially in their mathematical content. Carry on then.

You brought Haskell into the debate (along with many other topics) and I didn't get the impression it was in a positive light, hence my reply.

There isn't really anything more to debate. Your position appears to be that such details are "uninteresting", even for an aspiring high-level language like Python, because there are harder problems to solve. I suspect many academics would disagree, which I infer from their language designs.

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

#136

Post by Franciscouzo »

mkesper wrote: post #56
deckiedan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On most OSes, open a terminal and type 'python', and you get a python2 REPL. That's reason enough to write a lot of scripty admin / automation stuff in python2. And then if you need to extend that, it's easy to just continue on in python2. It's there, it works, it's stable, you don't have to maintain versions in case of security issues, the OS package does it for you.

It's high time to change that default. I'm glad django will not support Python2 after 2020, making clear it's legacy.

There's a reason the python command points to Python 2: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0394/

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

#137

Post by [deleted] »

baldfat wrote: post #64
wuschel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Numerical computations and plotting are also my prime use cases for Python. IMO it's the only real competition to Matlab in this area. What about Julia and R? I have never worked with them, I am just wondering that they are not mentioned.

There has been tension between the Python and R community, but not at all with the developers, i.e. feather development by both R's Hadley Wickham and Wes McKinley. Python and R are great tools, but the Python community tends to call R garbage and believes that Python has over taken R which is actually not true. R has really grown and is still the number one Open Source language in the domain and I think R has more r…

[deleted]

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

#138

Post by rwallace »

willtim wrote: post #88
dragonwriter wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BASIC used "=" for both assignment and equality tests long before Pascal existed and was more popular for teaching the youngest students even when Pascal was available, so I find the idea that the use of "=" for assignment is some kind of barrier that high school kids (or younger, even) are going to have a lot of problems with just as implausible as the idea that imperative mutation is such a problem.

It was before my time, but ALGOL used ":=" long before BASIC existed. The point is that academics have repeatedly not used "=" for assignment for successive new languages over many decades. Clearly they care, even if you do not.

Well yes, it's clear that repurposing '=' for assignment confuses or at least annoys many academics, no disputing that. But your earlier claim was that it confuses children, which it certainly does not. (Source: it didn't bother me in the slightest when I was learning Basic at age 11, or any of the other children I talked to about it.)

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

#139

Post by willtim »

rwallace wrote: post #138
willtim wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was before my time, but ALGOL used ":=" long before BASIC existed. The point is that academics have repeatedly not used "=" for assignment for successive new languages over many decades. Clearly they care, even if you do not.

Well yes, it's clear that repurposing '=' for assignment confuses or at least annoys many academics , no disputing that. But your earlier claim was that it confuses children , which it certainly does not. (Source: it didn't bother me in the slightest when I was learning Basic at age 11, or any of the other children I talked to about it.)

You have your personal annecdotes and I have my own. We will have to agree to disagree.
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