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Why I Switched from Python to Clojure (2016)

bradcypert.com

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Re: Why I Switched from Python to Clojure (2016)

#31

Post by thom »

heretoo wrote: post #27
luckydata wrote: post #21

I don't have a horse in this race but I find it interesting that in my career I've seen a lot of bad code but the worst clusterfucks I've met where all in Clojure while the community seems to be chock full of purists and in general people that takes craftmanship seriously at least at face value. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I work with clojure, and love it, but believe the problem is caused by java or equivalent paradigms applied to clojure. The high probability that clojure was someone's first functional language could also contribute to the problem. Your thoughts?

This is just blaming people for using Clojure's features though. If deep JVM integration wasn't a selling point, you'd use a vastly more mature Lisp, right?

Re: Why I Switched from Python to Clojure (2016)

#32

Post by istjohn »

blunte wrote: post #28
omginternets wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just cannot work with it. Can't or won't? I'm not being facetious, here. I just can't imagine any reason one _couldn't_ work with it, once the syntax is learnt. There's nothing about lisp-like syntax that's inherently hard to learn. Why is lisp special?

Not only is it not inherently hard to learn, it's arguably one of the easiest syntaxes to learn. ( fn-name param1 param2 ... ) is the syntax. Once the brain grasps this, a whole layer of complexity just vanishes. Furthermore, not having to use punctuation between items is just heavenly. There's so much less noise compared to Python, and Python isn't even a particularly noisy language.

Only if you don't consider a forest of parens to be noise. I do. I'm sure I could get used to it after a while, but at first glance, Python code is definitely cleaner than Lisp.

Re: Why I Switched from Python to Clojure (2016)

#33

Post by zwp »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #15
UncleEntity wrote: post #10

> ...the “implied self parameter” on python methods turned me off. If I had a nickel for every time I got the "TypeError: random_function() takes 1 positional argument but 2 were given" because I forget the "self" parameter I could buy myself a coffee. Probably a fancy one from the Starbucks even!

I always thought this made sense: a method, considered as a property of a class isn’t yet bound to any particular instance while, considered as a property of an instance has an implicit parameter of the instance you’re currently operating on: languages like Java hide this “this” parameter from you by passing it automatically while python makes it explicit so you can form a better mental model of what’s going on

The problem is that Python is the exception here. Those of us that learnt other languages first already have a mental model and find this explicit self parameter weird. And it's more typing.

Yegge thinks that "self" is a wart and I agree. The article is a fun read but it's showing its age. I suspect Python might just have beaten Perl by now.

https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel#TOC-...

I suppose Python's way there's one less reserved word. Are there any other advantages?

Re: Why I Switched from Python to Clojure (2016)

#34

Post by ken »

thom wrote: post #31
heretoo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work with clojure, and love it, but believe the problem is caused by java or equivalent paradigms applied to clojure. The high probability that clojure was someone's first functional language could also contribute to the problem. Your thoughts?

This is just blaming people for using Clojure's features though. If deep JVM integration wasn't a selling point, you'd use a vastly more mature Lisp, right?

A lot of us use Clojure despite the JVM, not because of it. Closure has a lot of (other) compelling features.

Re: Why I Switched from Python to Clojure (2016)

#35

Post by user234683 »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #15
UncleEntity wrote: post #10

> ...the “implied self parameter” on python methods turned me off. If I had a nickel for every time I got the "TypeError: random_function() takes 1 positional argument but 2 were given" because I forget the "self" parameter I could buy myself a coffee. Probably a fancy one from the Starbucks even!

I always thought this made sense: a method, considered as a property of a class isn’t yet bound to any particular instance while, considered as a property of an instance has an implicit parameter of the instance you’re currently operating on: languages like Java hide this “this” parameter from you by passing it automatically while python makes it explicit so you can form a better mental model of what’s going on

I think the way Lua handles it is much better. If you have object foo of class Foo with method bar, accessing it like foo.bar does no magic on it. You would have to call it as foo.bar(foo, ...) if you wanted to access the method with a dot. Only foo:bar will do the magic on it. If you call it as foo:bar(...) then the object will be passed to the first parameter. This follows "explicit is better than implicit" much better than the implicit self parameter in my opinion.

Re: Why I Switched from Python to Clojure (2016)

#36

Post by F-0X »

istjohn wrote: post #32
blunte wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is it not inherently hard to learn, it's arguably one of the easiest syntaxes to learn. ( fn-name param1 param2 ... ) is the syntax. Once the brain grasps this, a whole layer of complexity just vanishes. Furthermore, not having to use punctuation between items is just heavenly. There's so much less noise compared to Python, and Python isn't even a particularly noisy language.

Only if you don't consider a forest of parens to be noise. I do. I'm sure I could get used to it after a while, but at first glance, Python code is definitely cleaner than Lisp.

It's not a "forest of parens" any more than any language with C style syntax is, they're just in different places (the correct places) and there's no need to distinguish with braces (which you shouldn't need to).

Re: Why I Switched from Python to Clojure (2016)

#37

Post by Scarbutt »

thom wrote: post #30
snrji wrote: post #4

I have considered multiple times switching from Python to other alternatives. However, I instantly discard any language with a Lisp-like syntax. I just cannot work with it. Being a Haskell hobbyist, I would like Python to be statically type and have better support for pure functional programming, but Python has the libraries that I need.

I've programmed for 10 years in Clojure and have many regrets, but I've grown to just accept that Lisp syntax is correct. On day one you need to understand one thing. Years later, you need to understand one thing. And sure, in Clojure they happen to use three types of brackets for brevity but even that's optional. But other languages have dozens if not hundreds of little syntactical edge cases. I personally find that…

What are those regrets? ;)

Re: Why I Switched from Python to Clojure (2016)

#38

Post by jhhh »

snrji wrote: post #4

I have considered multiple times switching from Python to other alternatives. However, I instantly discard any language with a Lisp-like syntax. I just cannot work with it. Being a Haskell hobbyist, I would like Python to be statically type and have better support for pure functional programming, but Python has the libraries that I need.

Every person that I've talked to that seemed to have a strong negative opinion about parens never used it. They just think they won't like it but wouldn't take the minimal amount of time to give it a try with something like paredit. I was also in this camp for a long time until I figured I would give it a serious try instead of disparaging something I had not used. You might consider that creating and editing code with balanced parenthesis doesn't actually require you to insert them manually when you have an editor that will always keep the code data-structure balanced and makes structural editing simple.

Re: Why I Switched from Python to Clojure (2016)

#39

Post by coliveira »

snrji wrote: post #4

I have considered multiple times switching from Python to other alternatives. However, I instantly discard any language with a Lisp-like syntax. I just cannot work with it. Being a Haskell hobbyist, I would like Python to be statically type and have better support for pure functional programming, but Python has the libraries that I need.

I have considered Python many times, but I cannot work with a language that considers whitespaces as required syntax. I just cannot work with it.

Re: Why I Switched from Python to Clojure (2016)

#40

Post by jonahx »

luckydata wrote: post #21

I don't have a horse in this race but I find it interesting that in my career I've seen a lot of bad code but the worst clusterfucks I've met where all in Clojure while the community seems to be chock full of purists and in general people that takes craftmanship seriously at least at face value. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"The worst injuries I've ever seen were in big factories with large, powerful tools -- not in home garages where people just use hammers and hand-saws."

Powerful abstractions are... powerful. They're more difficult to use correctly, and take longer to learn.

The conclusion shouldn't (always) be to avoid them entirely.

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