I don't like Python. Does that make me a bad person? • Hacker News Board

Re: I don't like Python. Does that make me a bad person?

#81

Post by lars512 » Sat, Jun 26, 2010, 2:43 PM UTC

cageface wrote: post #70

jsankey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood this objection. Do you not indent your code anyway? If so, why should you also need to delineate scopes in another way? Python allows you to choose your indentation, it just requires consistency: something that is always required by coding standards (with good reason). If there was a command line switch, would you use it? Why?

Python's whitespace indentation seems like a great idea until you realize that it makes things like copying & pasting code from web pages etc far more difficult and, worse, makes automatically reindenting a block of code in an editor impossible. If I come across a badly formatted block of code in Ruby or Java or C in emacs it takes me one keypress to sort it out. In Python I have to carefully, manually look at each l…

I consider the indentation approach excellent because it's so clear and readable. For exactly the same reason, I prefer YAML over XML, because the result is something more readable, something whose structure is understandable at a glance.

Re: I don't like Python. Does that make me a bad person?

#82

Post by jonknee » Sat, Jun 26, 2010, 2:43 PM UTC

maw wrote: post #66

nailer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use auto indent on python all day. Not having to perform secondary bracket mark up is great.

You don't, because auto indent for python doesn't and can't exist.

I think he means in his editor. I do the same, it works well.

Re: I don't like Python. Does that make me a bad person?

#83

Post by technomancy » Sat, Jun 26, 2010, 3:04 PM UTC

If you don't like Python, it may just be an indicator that you know more about functional programming than Guido, which is hardly a feat. Read his opinions about tail-calls for a good laugh.

Re: I don't like Python. Does that make me a bad person?

#84

Post by gcr » Sat, Jun 26, 2010, 3:05 PM UTC

maw wrote: post #66

nailer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use auto indent on python all day. Not having to perform secondary bracket mark up is great.

You don't, because auto indent for python doesn't and can't exist.

Are you sure? A counterexample: My editor indents every line that I end with a colon (:). So I just type : and and have a new indent. When I want to unindent, I just type backspace to go back one tab. This is simple to implement and understand, and with python, it's really all I need.

This kind of "automatic indentation" (colon-enter to indent, a quick backspace to unindent) feels much more natural to me than a C-style indent, where the editor's cue to indent would be space-rightbracket-enter and leftbracket-enter to unindent.

True, one cannot come accross a completely unindented block of python code and ask the editor to format it correctly for them. But by definition, unindented code is not valid python and will not run. This is not unlike C / C++ / Java code that's missing all its braces, which would not run either.

Re: I don't like Python. Does that make me a bad person?

#85

Post by kbob » Sat, Jun 26, 2010, 3:07 PM UTC

The paradigm shift is that in Python the most direct way is best.

Examples.

In Java, accessor methods are considered good style. In Python, directly accessing a member is better. (more concise, makes client code clearer.) If you need to do magic, you can use properties.

In C++ and Java, you use inheritance to denote which classes have a given behavior. In Java, you also use interfaces. In Python, you simply give a class the needed method(s). (I.e., you use duck typing.) That flattens or removes lots of class hierarchies. If you need to do magic, you can use isinstance(), issubclass() or hasattr().

In Python, you use the built-in types a lot. Many problems decompose easily to lists, sets and dictionaries. That reduces code dramatically. Java and C++ STL's containers, in contrast, are so clumsy they make me look for ways to avoid them. If you need to do magic, you can subclass the built-in types or build new types with the same methods as the built-ins.

Re: I don't like Python. Does that make me a bad person?

#86

Post by Jeema3000 » Sat, Jun 26, 2010, 3:07 PM UTC

cageface wrote: post #70

jsankey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood this objection. Do you not indent your code anyway? If so, why should you also need to delineate scopes in another way? Python allows you to choose your indentation, it just requires consistency: something that is always required by coding standards (with good reason). If there was a command line switch, would you use it? Why?

Python's whitespace indentation seems like a great idea until you realize that it makes things like copying & pasting code from web pages etc far more difficult and, worse, makes automatically reindenting a block of code in an editor impossible. If I come across a badly formatted block of code in Ruby or Java or C in emacs it takes me one keypress to sort it out. In Python I have to carefully, manually look at each l…

It's also very annoying to have to un-indent an entire block of code during debugging just because you want to comment out the conditional statement around it...

Re: I don't like Python. Does that make me a bad person?

#87

Post by exit » Sat, Jun 26, 2010, 3:12 PM UTC

cageface wrote: post #71

You owe it to yourself to learn at least one dynamic high level language. The advantage of Python (and Ruby, which I prefer) is that, for the right tasks, it's an extremely productive language. Compared to C++ or Java you have to write far, far less code and you can usually find good libraries that reduce the amount of code you have to write even further. Python doesn't have the elegance or flexibility of Lisp, but i…

curious what you prefer about Ruby. i'm very familiar with python, and have only looked at Ruby long enough to decide (mistakenly?) that it wouldn't do anything for me which python doesn't already.

Re: I don't like Python. Does that make me a bad person?

#88

Post by donw » Sat, Jun 26, 2010, 3:14 PM UTC

amix wrote: post #4

Yesterday there was an interesting link on HN comparing NLP in Python vs. other languages: http://nltk.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/doc/howto/nlp-python.ht... . I think this article shows the clearness of the Python language - - and this clearness and simplicity is the reason why I love to code in Python.

Don't know why, but I feel the need to contribute a shorter Ruby sample that feels closer to conventional Ruby. :)

ARGF.lines.each { |line| line.split.each { |word| word.match(/ing$/) and puts word } }

Re: I don't like Python. Does that make me a bad person?

#89

Post by jakevoytko » Sat, Jun 26, 2010, 3:19 PM UTC

jnoller wrote: post #77

jakevoytko wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Right Way for a long time was to run multiple processes. If you absolutely needed threads, then the Other Way That Is Less Correct involved launching threads written in C from a C extension The Python community seems to be warming to the importance of threads. There are several efforts breaking their swords against the GIL nowadays (Unladen Swallow being the most prominent), and Antoine Pitrou wrote a new GIL to…

If someone were to submit a patch nuking the GIL, I doubt it would be a language change, ergo, the language moratorium (a block on new syntax) does not apply.

I agree. To clarify, I'm hoping that because they're not focusing on language enhancements, they might make some major headway towards nuking the GIL

Re: I don't like Python. Does that make me a bad person?

#90

Post by cageface » Sat, Jun 26, 2010, 3:29 PM UTC

exit wrote: post #87

cageface wrote: post #71

You owe it to yourself to learn at least one dynamic high level language. The advantage of Python (and Ruby, which I prefer) is that, for the right tasks, it's an extremely productive language. Compared to C++ or Java you have to write far, far less code and you can usually find good libraries that reduce the amount of code you have to write even further. Python doesn't have the elegance or flexibility of Lisp, but i…

curious what you prefer about Ruby. i'm very familiar with python, and have only looked at Ruby long enough to decide (mistakenly?) that it wouldn't do anything for me which python doesn't already.

Python and Ruby are very much alike but I find Ruby more ergonomic. It's more consistently object-oriented, which means I spend less time looking things up because the core is easier to remember. The syntax is more expressive, which makes my code shorter and easier to read. The consistent use of blocks everywhere is more intuitive and consistent than Python's mix of loops and comprehensions. I find I can take in a block of Ruby at a glance. Python requires closer inspection. Everything in Ruby is an expression that returns a value whereas Python has statements and expressions and it's up to you to remember which are which. Ruby feels to me like the product of an astute student of languages that borrowed the best ideas from Smalltalk, Lisp, Icon etc. The design mistakes in the first versions of Python, mostly now corrected, suggest to me that Guido didn't do his homework as dilligently.

Perhaps I'm way off here but the languages seem to me to show some of their cultural heritage. Python has a blunt & minimalistic Dutchness about it while Ruby has a Japanese elegance and style.