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What’s New in Python 3.8

docs.python.org

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Re: What’s New in Python 3.8

#291

Post by hannibalhorn »

CivBase wrote: post #83
paulddraper wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a developer who has primarily developed applications in Python for his entire professional career, I can't say I'm especially excited about any of the "headlining" features of 3.8. Python is a fairly old, mature language. What features would you have been especially excited about?

The f-strings from 3.6 are a (relatively) recent feature that I have absolutely loved. I'd go so far as to say they are my favorite feature introduced by Python 3. I'm also looking forward to PEP-554 [0], which allows for "subinterpreters" for running concurrent code without removing the GIL or incurring the overhead of subprocesses. [0] https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0554/

Sounds like PEP-544 is actually included in 3.8 on a "provisional" basis, which I guess just means they reserve the right to change the API. That's a killer feature for me, thanks for pointing it out!

Re: What’s New in Python 3.8

#292

Post by chooseaname »

eru wrote: post #191
chooseaname wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rock and a hard place, no? Either you keep adding to a language and people keep using it, or you stop adding to a language and people call it a dead language and stop using it. Most devs don't understand that software can be done and still be useful.

Well, you could also try to remove from the language. Like how they removed the `print` keyword when going from Python 2 to Python 3. But removing is harder than adding.

Right. Maybe I should have said, "... keep changing a language..."

Re: What’s New in Python 3.8

#293

Post by metalliqaz »

mkl wrote: post #247
kbd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm stoked about the walrus operator. Ever since I heard it was being added I've grumbled when writing code that would have been clearer with it. Of course I have to ask, what was your preferred syntax?

Not OP, but maybe it's "as": if re.match(pattern, string) as m: #use m Seems a bit more Pythonic, as "as" is already used like this with "with". Either one would be fine with me and useful.

yep, that's the one!

Re: What’s New in Python 3.8

#294

Post by nine_k »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #212
nine_k wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite its flaws, not due to them. Same can be said about e.g. Cobol.

False. There have been dozens of working C++ competitors over the years, each one technically as good as C++. They all failed because their authors are good at writing languages, but very bad at knowing how languages are used in the real world. The C++ committee really knows what it's doing, you're not going to do anything useful in this space without actually understanding the problem domain. TL;DR - yes, C++ is com…

C++ made a number of... unfortunate decisions early in its development, which resulted in a much worse language than it could have been. (Hindsight is 20/20, of course.)

I totally agree that C++ of 21st century is way better than C++ from 1998, and is becoming better. The problem is that maintaining backwards compatibility requires to keep a number of footguns in place, and some of them are cornerstones of the language :(

I have high hopes for Rust becoming the more sane competitor in the space traditionally occupied by C++. Its authors seem to understand the problem domain from a very practical standpoint, and are proficient in C++, to begin with. They also strive to apply reasonable design principles, and some actual math hopefully will keep the core of the language from logical pitfalls.

Another example of hitting a sweet spot is Go. I dislike many Go's language decisions. (Some are definitely great, though, e.g. the whole OOP approach lifted from Oberon.) But its authors definitely understand both the problem domain, and the target audience.

This is what I mean by talking about success despite the flaws. C++ has both flaws and merits, and merits outweighed the flaws. But the flaws are still painful.

Re: What’s New in Python 3.8

#295

Post by KaiserPro »

paulddraper wrote: post #73
CivBase wrote: post #22

As a developer who has primarily developed applications in Python for his entire professional career, I can't say I'm especially excited about any of the "headlining" features of 3.8. The "walrus operator" will occasionally be useful, but I doubt I will find many effective uses for it. Same with the forced positional/keyword arguments and the "self-documenting" f-string expressions. Even when they have a use, it's us…

> As a developer who has primarily developed applications in Python for his entire professional career, I can't say I'm especially excited about any of the "headlining" features of 3.8. Python is a fairly old, mature language. What features would you have been especially excited about?

proper threads.

Re: What’s New in Python 3.8

#296

Post by Grue3 »

enriquto wrote: post #233
rolux wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would of course be an absolute disaster, given that any user input could easily leak internal state and/or break your program.

I meant for inline strings (i.e., typed by the programmer). This is an inoffensive change. The only possible ``accident'' is when the programmer wants to write "{x}" instead of the value of x. This is such and exceptional case that it may be best treated by forcing to escape the curly brackets. If anything, user-input strings must be treated as tainted whatever the case.

It's not an exceptional use case at all. f-strings are pretty much useless for any non-trivial formatting:

1) customizable templates (can't allow the user to access arbitrary variables)

2) i18n (can't allow the translator to access arbitrary variables)

3) complex values being passed to .format() instead of some variable

Re: What’s New in Python 3.8

#297

Post by shaklee3 »

penagwin wrote: post #173
shaklee3 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard people recommend poetry on here as something that is good for package management, but I haven't tried it. Does anyone know of something like that, but also can build your application into a Docker container as well?

Into a docker container as well? The package manager isn't really related to docker though? Does your container expose ports or need volumes? Does it need gunicorn or uwsgi in front of it? What about system packages? None of those (except maybe the last one) are really in the scope of the package manager.

The main use case is I have a project with a setup.py that has the normal stuff in it, and there's a main entry point in one of the files. I then make a dockerfile that installs that package in a container and runs the main file as the entry point. Ignoring things like ports, it would be nice to emit a standard dockerfile like that, since it's very common.

Re: What’s New in Python 3.8

#298

Post by Grue3 »

paulddraper wrote: post #73
CivBase wrote: post #22

As a developer who has primarily developed applications in Python for his entire professional career, I can't say I'm especially excited about any of the "headlining" features of 3.8. The "walrus operator" will occasionally be useful, but I doubt I will find many effective uses for it. Same with the forced positional/keyword arguments and the "self-documenting" f-string expressions. Even when they have a use, it's us…

> As a developer who has primarily developed applications in Python for his entire professional career, I can't say I'm especially excited about any of the "headlining" features of 3.8. Python is a fairly old, mature language. What features would you have been especially excited about?

Multi-line/multi-expression lambdas.

"end" statement which would enable automatic indentation.

"switch" statement instead of "if/elif/.../else" hell.

Re: What’s New in Python 3.8

#299

Post by macintux »

cpach wrote: post #229
macintux wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mac has had, as a standard feature for decades, an on-screen keyboard to allow you to explore the results of different key combinations. It’s a great tool.

Cool! Where do I find it?

In Mojave, and it’s pretty similar across versions IIRC: open keyboard preferences in system settings and check the “Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar” box.

That will replace the language flag icon in your top bar with an odd icon with the command key embedded.

The second option in that menu is the keyboard viewer. You can show that and drag on a corner to make it as large as you want. Dynamically changes the keyboard as you hold down modifier keys.

Re: What’s New in Python 3.8

#300

Post by Nullabillity »

diminoten wrote: post #9
metalliqaz wrote: post #2

This is the release that contains the controversial assignment expressions, which sparked the debate that convinced GvR to quit as BDFL. They didn't select my preferred syntax, but I'm still looking forward to using assignment expressions for testing my re.match() objects. I haven't used 3.8.0 yet but I hope its a good one because 2020 is the year that 2.7 dies and there will be a lot of people switching.

Because of the luddites at RedHat, Python2.7 isn't actually dead until 2024. It's infuriating. https://access.redhat.com/solutions/4455511

If you want other people to make a change then it's on you to make a convincing argument for why the new thing is an improvement, not just go on tirades about how people should get with the times.

Personally, I lost faith in the Python core team because of the Py3 migration. Yes, 3.x now has a bunch of nice features that 2.x did, but almost none of them actually depend on the 3.0's breakage (as proven by Tauthon).

If you want people to follow you through a break-the-world migration then you need to motivate why it is needed and why it couldn't be done incrementally, not try tempt them with a bunch of unrelated carrots that are bundled together with the breaking change.

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