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Reasons Python Sucks

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Re: Reasons Python Sucks

#161

Post by clumpthump »

pkolaczk wrote: post #120
notacoward wrote: post #70

Most of the points in this article fall on a continuum between irrelevant to dead wrong. 1 (versions) and 2 (installation) have to do with the ecosystem, not the language. Unsigned packages are a real problem, but hating on community-maintained software is just weird. Most software in your local Linux distro's repository is maintained by a "community" that might just be one person working in their spare time. 3 (synt…

7 Isn't Python actually pass-by-value / pass-pointer-to-object-by-value like Java is? Many confuse pass-pointer-to-object-by-value with pass-by-reference, but they are different things. Pass-by-reference allows to write a procedure that swaps two external values.

People confusing this terminology is one of my pet peeves. And it's not a petty one. It often impedes the conversation they're trying to have.

Re: Reasons Python Sucks

#162

Post by bakery2k »

Regarding reason 3 (syntax), I don't mind significant whitespace in itself, but it has knock-on effects which can be problematic. It's the direct cause of Python's `lambda` limitations [1], and IIRC the lack of an explicit end-of-block marker is also the reason for Python not having `do-while` loops.

However, what would be the alternative to significant indentation? I really don't think C-style syntax would work for Python...

[1] https://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=147358

Re: Reasons Python Sucks

#163

Post by civility »

pkolaczk wrote: post #120
notacoward wrote: post #70

Most of the points in this article fall on a continuum between irrelevant to dead wrong. 1 (versions) and 2 (installation) have to do with the ecosystem, not the language. Unsigned packages are a real problem, but hating on community-maintained software is just weird. Most software in your local Linux distro's repository is maintained by a "community" that might just be one person working in their spare time. 3 (synt…

7 Isn't Python actually pass-by-value / pass-pointer-to-object-by-value like Java is? Many confuse pass-pointer-to-object-by-value with pass-by-reference, but they are different things. Pass-by-reference allows to write a procedure that swaps two external values.

You're right that you can't perform swaps with a Python function, but it's never pass-by-value like Java primitive types. It feels like pass-by-value because int, long, float, complex, and string are basically immutable.

Re: Reasons Python Sucks

#164

Post by com2kid »

notacoward wrote: post #70

Most of the points in this article fall on a continuum between irrelevant to dead wrong. 1 (versions) and 2 (installation) have to do with the ecosystem, not the language. Unsigned packages are a real problem, but hating on community-maintained software is just weird. Most software in your local Linux distro's repository is maintained by a "community" that might just be one person working in their spare time. 3 (synt…

#7 is so very wrong in so many ways.

Even languages that are pure "pass by value" cheat pass the value of a reference for objects.

Very few languages support doing a deep copy when passing an object. I'm trying to think of a single one, and I know that none of the major ones do. C will pass an entire struct, and so long as the struct doesn't have any pointers, sure...

But even in C passing a struct by value is highly discouraged, since it can spew all over registers and the stack! I've worked with coding conventions where pointers to structs are passed, and then the called function memcpy's the struct if it needs to hang on to it, or just leaves well enough alone if it only needs to pull values.

Re: Reasons Python Sucks

#165

Post by bakery2k »

setpatchaddress wrote: post #145
fhood wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how far off the author was, because there are genuine things to complain about with python, though they may not be exclusive to python. I regularly wish python required some sort type indication for function parameters, because dealing with libraries that take complex objects as function parameters can be an absolute nightmare. I wish python had some equivalent to the switch statement that didn't involve w…

Agreed. After indentation-as-syntax -- which I've always hated, and I've been using Python since version 1.5 -- lack of switch statement is my #1 problem with Python.

> indentation-as-syntax -- which I've always hated

What would you prefer? C-style syntax? Ruby-style `end end end`?

Re: Reasons Python Sucks

#166

Post by nicolashahn »

nicoburns wrote: post #133
fhood wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how far off the author was, because there are genuine things to complain about with python, though they may not be exclusive to python. I regularly wish python required some sort type indication for function parameters, because dealing with libraries that take complex objects as function parameters can be an absolute nightmare. I wish python had some equivalent to the switch statement that didn't involve w…

Indeed. My personal bugbear is lack of multiline lambdas. I use these all the freaking time in JS and it's infuriating that I can't in python. At the end of the day it's a minor complaint of course.

I think it makes more sense in a language where you have to write callbacks all the time. I consider it a feature in Python, because by using `def` you're forced to imbue the function with meaning by providing it a name. Otherwise, it's just reading through a potentially complicated function without any context of what it's supposed to be doing.

Re: Reasons Python Sucks

#167

Post by dbdjfjrjvebd »

notacoward wrote: post #70

Most of the points in this article fall on a continuum between irrelevant to dead wrong. 1 (versions) and 2 (installation) have to do with the ecosystem, not the language. Unsigned packages are a real problem, but hating on community-maintained software is just weird. Most software in your local Linux distro's repository is maintained by a "community" that might just be one person working in their spare time. 3 (synt…

On pass by reference.. I really miss Fortran's intent(in). You get a reference to the data but it is immutable... I would like if Python had something similar...

Re: Reasons Python Sucks

#168

Post by tabtab »

SamWhited wrote: post #73

I tend to agree with the author (although not with a few of his specific reasons) that Python is terrible. Everywhere I've ever been that used Python they've claimed it was to make development faster, but mostly we just fought with bugs that cropped up around tests that were too aggressively mocked and weren't testing things, or stuff that somehow was in the wrong scope because someones editor was using the wrong typ…

Re: There is no situation in which PHP is the appropriate tool for the job...

While clunky as a language, PHP's "environment" is better if you are doing web apps. Easier to install, including a test setup, more web-oriented libraries and functions, and a built-in HTML templating language for "view" pages (per MVC).

If your stack is designed right, you'll be spending most your time plugging in parameters to API's such that the language itself won't make a whole lot of difference. You should be mostly gluing libraries, not writing an OS from scratch. If I were doing the second, then Python would be the better choice.

Re: Reasons Python Sucks

#169

Post by neurobashing »

bdcravens wrote: post #95
diminoten wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for going point by point. I was blown away by how little experience the author had with Python, compared to how strong his opinion is about it. I hate hate hate language debates, but this isn't even that, it's just a misunderstanding. If this guy took a class on Python he'd figure out like 5 or 6 of these issues no problem!

True of most "X Sucks" discussions. I used to do a lot of ColdFusion. A mention of that would elicit the oh-so-clever, "I'm sorry...." A little digging found they either had never written a line of CFML in their life, or they worked on a project back in 2005 before they added numerable features, and before many of the frameworks and tooling that a typical developer would use.

same for PHP. Still not great but there is in 2018 essentially a "good parts" set of best practices, which combined w/ v7 is not a horrible language/platform. I feel you if you just don't like it, but I see so many people just quoting that old "fractal of bad design" post that's really not relevant any more.

Re: Reasons Python Sucks

#170

Post by com2kid »

jerf wrote: post #99
lmm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those languages use references rather than pointers (that is, their referring-things do not support arithmetic), so any name for what they do that involves "pointer" is a poor one. The distinction between passing the value of a reference being used by the caller and passing a reference to the caller's stack is so rarely important or useful that there's no consensus terminology for it. The distinction that's actually…

"The distinction between passing the value of a reference being used by the caller and passing a reference to the caller's stack is so rarely important or useful that there's no consensus terminology for it." And the reason for that is essentially all modern languages make copies of something when passing argument parameters. The only question is what they are passing and exactly how hard the language layer works to…

> And the reason for that is essentially all modern languages make copies of something when passing argument parameters.

Then of course someone turns on whole program optimization for C++, half the code gets inlined into one terrifying large function, nothing is copied anywhere, and the code runs 2x faster.

Then some poor SOB has to debug the assembly code for all of this and has nightmares for years after.

Not like I'd know or anything. :)`

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