All the things I hate about Python
medium.com
All the things I hate about Python
1–10 of 87 posts
Re: All the things I hate about Python
#2> Ok, so “hate” is a strong word, but hopefully this click-baits enough folks into reading this article with a clearer, more rational and unbiased demeanor than what the title suggests.
Self-aware clickbait is the worst kind of clickbait.
Re: All the things I hate about Python
#3> Python is considered a weakly-typed or dynamically-typed programming language.
This isn't right. Weak/strong typing is on a different axis than static/dynamic typing.
Python is strongly typed. There's no implicit conversion among types (which is one marker of weak-typedness). For proof, consider:
>>> 1 + '3'
[...]
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'int' and 'str'
In a weakly-typed language, if your function expects an X and you give it a Y, well, it'll do its best to make due.
Many people think that because Python is dynamically typed (i.e. you can pass anything anywhere without compile-time restrictions), that it must also be weakly typed. This is simply not the case. If I write a function which expects an integer and I give it a string, I'm going to have a bad time despite the fact that the code "compiles" and only fails at runtime.
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Edit: I've read further, and the author actually uses their lack of knowledge on this subject to portray the Python community as being willfully misleading in their promotion of the language:
> Python markets itself as a dynamically-typed programming language, similar to Perl, Ruby, or JavaScript. The word “dynamically typed” has a positive connotation, more so than “weakly typed.” Conversely, the word “strongly typed” sounds more positive than saying “statically typed.” Diction matters, because proponents of different camps will select a word-choice that reflects their bias of one programming language over another. Python is both weakly-typed and dynamically typed, which contrasts itself to languages like Java, Scala, C/C++, and Go which are strongly-, statically-typed.
C is statically typed, but it is also weakly typed. You can treat any value as any type if you so wish, either by explicitly casting or by removing checks for implicit casts during compilation.
I'm going to finish reading this article, but... I don't think I respect this author very much, based on what I've seen so far.
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Edit 2: While the author's points would be valid by themselves (GIL, build toolchain, dynamic typing), the over-abundance of negative rhetoric shows that the author was merely interested in writing a smear article of Python, essentially. I think it's a pretty weak article overall, and would have been aided by a more fair comparison with notes about why some of these design decisions were made (or at least a less-slanted writing style).
Re: All the things I hate about Python
#4To me, the core points seem like table stakes knowledge that one should have before jumping into development with ANY language, not just Python. Every language is a tool that is good at some things and not good at others. Cue the standard if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
A few core things:
The GIL problem is frustrating. I generally just try to avoid writing threaded code and instead execute calls asynchronously or run parallel instances and work with Celery or something similar. For web applications, this tends to work well enough for me personally but this is definitely a valid issue.
Python2 vs Python3 is sort of a done deal at this point, in my opinion. I was a big holdout on moving to 3 for a while but, for the past couple of years, I haven't had more than 1 or 2 cases where I had serious issues. I don't have to deal with legacy codebases though.
On a larger note, I would say that this all points to the fact that it is easy to do things the "wrong way" in Python. The accessibility of the language is great, but it is not without its issues if you go in expecting it to be a fenced-in playground with batteries included (to mix metaphors).
Re: All the things I hate about Python
#5> Ok, so “hate” is a strong word, but hopefully this click-baits enough folks into reading this article with a clearer, more rational and unbiased demeanor than what the title suggests. Self-aware clickbait is the worst kind of clickbait.
All clickbait is self-aware. People aren’t not doing it by accident.
Re: All the things I hate about Python
#6> Python is viewed as a ubiquitous programming language; however, its design limits its potential as a reliable and high performance systems language. Unfortunately, not every developer is aware of its limitations.
Hammer is viewed as a ubiquitous [sic] tool; however, its design limits its potential as a reliable and high performance drill. Unfortunately, not every carpenter is aware of its limitations.
Re: All the things I hate about Python
#7> Python is considered a weakly-typed or dynamically-typed programming language. This isn't right. Weak/strong typing is on a different axis than static/dynamic typing. Python is strongly typed. There's no implicit conversion among types (which is one marker of weak-typedness). For proof, consider: >>> 1 + '3' [...] TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'int' and 'str' Strongly typed means that the types are…
It's also in the Wikipedia page about python that it is not a "weakly typed" language. It's literally in the resume box in the corner : "Typing discipline : Duck, dynamic, strong".
Edit: I was going to mention the author's confusion, but OP did it in their edit.
Edit 2: The author is "Staff Software Engineer at Tesla" ? And he doesn't know C pointers ?
Re: All the things I hate about Python
#8I love Python, and use it often. It's huge in many industries due to the ease in which people from various backgrounds can learn it. However, I agree whole heartedly with the article. Python does not scale, performs poorly and is unreliable at run time.
I think this is true for many second generation languages, not just Python. Perl, Ruby and JavaScript are really no different. None of these languages were designed to scale, be cloud oriented and perform close to C. Thus, many developers complain of 'hitting the wall' and try other languages because their tools were not intended nor designed to do these things.
I also think Go (and languages like it) which were designed to scale, use the cloud, be safe and fast (performance close to C) are the solution and the future. Here's a quote from Ian Lance Taylor, "Go was deliberately built from the start to support large scale programs implemented by hundreds or thousands of different programmers. Those kinds of programs are written at Google, and Go was designed to be used to write programs at Google."
More from Ian on this topic here - https://www.quora.com/Will-the-Golang-code-become-unmaintain...
Re: All the things I hate about Python
#9> Ok, so “hate” is a strong word, but hopefully this click-baits enough folks into reading this article with a clearer, more rational and unbiased demeanor than what the title suggests. Self-aware clickbait is the worst kind of clickbait.
If the title had been "Python [is] a very problematic programming language for building reliable, high-performance distributed systems.", we'd all have just gone "duh" and moved on.
Re: All the things I hate about Python
#10The thing I hate about Python related article: A big snake. It scares me every single time. Please don't put a big snake in your articles