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Is Python the Future of Programming?

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Re: Is Python the Future of Programming?

#11

Post by oddity »

booleandilemma wrote: post #5

How are people writing large programs in Python? Isn’t the lack of compiler type checking making it difficult? And what about lack of access modifiers? People aren’t bothered by this? For programs less than 500 lines, I have no issues with Python, but it feels to me like Python just isn’t suited for large-scale programming in the way C#, Java, Go, or Rust are.

Easy. They write code. Code "works". Cool, ship it. Oh what's that? It has lots of bugs? How much money is it going to make us if we fix them? Eh, maybe we'll get to it. /s

The real productivity win here is that you can hire a bunch of junior engineers out of university for "cheap" that "know" python. After all, why would you train a new hire in a different language for a few weeks or months when that would take a huge amount of time in startup-verse? /s?

It's important to note that the largest push for things like type checking and access control in dynamically-typed, shared-mutable-everything languages are coming from the companies that built themselves quickly on these languages and now need to deal with scaling.

Re: Is Python the Future of Programming?

#13

Post by bnchrch »

booleandilemma wrote: post #5

How are people writing large programs in Python? Isn’t the lack of compiler type checking making it difficult? And what about lack of access modifiers? People aren’t bothered by this? For programs less than 500 lines, I have no issues with Python, but it feels to me like Python just isn’t suited for large-scale programming in the way C#, Java, Go, or Rust are.

I think programmers often misinterpret what’s hard about building large projects.

It’s not correctness it’s communication. A type checker will save you from small errors but well written and easily understandable code will save you from a lot more.

Not saying readability is harder in c# java go or rust just that the type system doesn’t help with it that much.

Re: Is Python the Future of Programming?

#14

Post by mistahchris »

booleandilemma wrote: post #5

How are people writing large programs in Python? Isn’t the lack of compiler type checking making it difficult? And what about lack of access modifiers? People aren’t bothered by this? For programs less than 500 lines, I have no issues with Python, but it feels to me like Python just isn’t suited for large-scale programming in the way C#, Java, Go, or Rust are.

Some of the biggest web services are written with Python. There are tradeoffs, just like everything else. I happen to work for a company with a gigantic python codebase. It would be a hell of a lot easier to refactor our systems if we were in a statically typed system, but we work around this by having shitloads of tests. Tradeoffs.

I don't think python is good for large systems, but for companies, it's hard to get to that point without something that you can prototype quickly with.

Re: Is Python the Future of Programming?

#15

Post by kjeetgill »

booleandilemma wrote: post #5

How are people writing large programs in Python? Isn’t the lack of compiler type checking making it difficult? And what about lack of access modifiers? People aren’t bothered by this? For programs less than 500 lines, I have no issues with Python, but it feels to me like Python just isn’t suited for large-scale programming in the way C#, Java, Go, or Rust are.

Agreed. I love both (you can check my post history) but literally the most basic thing trips me up beyond a certain size/scope of programs: typos. Having a little structure that an IDE can leverage makes mountains of difference.

I'm sure a more competent typist wouldn't have these issues but it trips me up constantly just in dev. Tests protect this from hitting prod.

The extra refactor support just isn't there compared to java.

Re: Is Python the Future of Programming?

#16

Post by oddity »

jgibson wrote: post #8
booleandilemma wrote: post #5

How are people writing large programs in Python? Isn’t the lack of compiler type checking making it difficult? And what about lack of access modifiers? People aren’t bothered by this? For programs less than 500 lines, I have no issues with Python, but it feels to me like Python just isn’t suited for large-scale programming in the way C#, Java, Go, or Rust are.

Access modifiers are something that I only ever find to get in the way. I've recently moved to Java from Python for work. The underscore convention in python works fine for hiding stuff from the general public namespace, but its still there if you want to explore how some code or module works. Java really annoys me because I can't access implementation details when I'm trying something out in an interactive shell or…

The point of access modifiers is to get in the way. They're ways of allowing developers of one part of the source to control what the path of least resistance is for the users of that code.

If you expose everything, someone will write code that depends against it and make it harder for you to improve or change it in the future. Tossing in roadblocks helps guide users to the better long-term path.

It doesn't really matter for small teams, but it's essential for large ones without aggressive (and difficult) enforcement of contract between team members.

Re: Is Python the Future of Programming?

#17

Post by mayniac »

Python is stupidly simple and that's the reason I use it for 99% of my work (netsec/forensics).

I introduced my ex to it for her dissertation in astro-physics. It took her under a week to mainly self-learn and start writing scripts with numpy and matplotlib, and it was her first language. The code wasn't good by professional standards, but it did the job. I cannot think of any programming/scripting language which can be learned by someone with no previous programming experience in under a week at a level where it can be used in a masters dissertation.

Re: Is Python the Future of Programming?

#18

Post by ospider »

booleandilemma wrote: post #5

How are people writing large programs in Python? Isn’t the lack of compiler type checking making it difficult? And what about lack of access modifiers? People aren’t bothered by this? For programs less than 500 lines, I have no issues with Python, but it feels to me like Python just isn’t suited for large-scale programming in the way C#, Java, Go, or Rust are.

> Isn’t the lack of compiler type checking making it difficult?

There is type hinting.

> And what about lack of access modifiers?

There is @property decorators

Re: Is Python the Future of Programming?

#19

Post by jzwinck »

jaequery wrote: post #9

Python is one of the simplest language you can learn. It is really nicely designed and executed. If simplicity is the goal, Python has that in spades.

Lua is far simpler, and still easy to learn. Yet it's powerful enough to be used in "real" projects (e.g. Photoshop Lightroom).

Re: Is Python the Future of Programming?

#20

Post by ausjke »

I have never got serious about python until very recently(I mean about one week), the more I dive into it the more I am convinced yes python is the future in the sense it does the below:

    replacing BASIC(i.e. good for beginners)
    replacing Java in colleges for intro to programming
    replacing matlab(ipython jupyter)
    replacing R for ML and big data
    great for web scraping
    replacing Perl and probably shell scripts for CLI scripting.
    strong backend framework candidates such as flask and django comparing to php/javascript frameworks too.
    micropython runs on resource constrained systems so it can replace Lua there.
    C friendly so you can optimize performance bottleneck when there are any.
The only missing area I can see, is that it is not designed for html/css/js frontend, so you have to use javascript there.

yes, Python could be the future of programming.

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