Python's “disappointing” superpowers • Hacker News Board

Re: Python's “disappointing” superpowers

#21

Post by wefarrell » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 8:09 PM UTC

lordgroff wrote: post #6

I maintain Python code bases for a living, and feel that the language has simply been pushed too far. Static typing in Python doesn't give you the advantage of actually static typing and even IDE support is -- well it's not terrible, just not great. The thing is, once we go through all this static typing exercise in Python, we get no performance advantages, and the whole thing seems bolted on, with worse semantics th…

That's also true of Typescript, which has been wildly successful and taken over the javascript ecosystem. The main advantage of types is that it makes your code more maintainable by adding guardrails. You'll still possible run into issues at runtime and they're not perfect, but they're better than not having types at all.

Re: Python's “disappointing” superpowers

#22

Post by wheelerof4te » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 8:15 PM UTC

Either embrace dynamic typing and provide good error guards...or try to use type hints and still make good error guards.

We had an entire history of Python 2 without type hints. Why use them now?

Re: Python's “disappointing” superpowers

#23

Post by nextaccountic » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 8:17 PM UTC

yummypaint wrote: post #11

lordgroff wrote: post #6

I maintain Python code bases for a living, and feel that the language has simply been pushed too far. Static typing in Python doesn't give you the advantage of actually static typing and even IDE support is -- well it's not terrible, just not great. The thing is, once we go through all this static typing exercise in Python, we get no performance advantages, and the whole thing seems bolted on, with worse semantics th…

I routinely use cython to compile python for heavy workloads. A big part of the ~10x speedup i usually see comes from strategically assigning true static types to certain variables that get frequently iterated or compared. Most variables are left as standard python as it isn't necessary to change them for performance. My experience has been that cython "just works" even with lots of external libraries etc, and the co…

> I routinely use cython to compile python for heavy workloads.

an alternative is rust + pyo3 https://pyo3.rs

here's a web framework written with it, https://robyn.tech

the other poster child for pyo3 is polars, https://www.pola.rs

it's simply, amazing.

Re: Python's “disappointing” superpowers

#24

Post by teaearlgraycold » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 8:19 PM UTC

TypeScript is the language Python wants to be. If only JS came with a Go-level stdlib there’d be nothing to complain about.

Re: Python's “disappointing” superpowers

#25

Post by abdullahkhalids » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 8:21 PM UTC

lordgroff wrote: post #6

I maintain Python code bases for a living, and feel that the language has simply been pushed too far. Static typing in Python doesn't give you the advantage of actually static typing and even IDE support is -- well it's not terrible, just not great. The thing is, once we go through all this static typing exercise in Python, we get no performance advantages, and the whole thing seems bolted on, with worse semantics th…

> the whole thing seems bolted on, with worse semantics than most modern typed languages

One of the biggest sources of ugliness is the "None". The standard way of declaring variables ahead of time is setting them to None. But then, the type hints just become these ugly unreadable Optional[ActualTypeofVar] everywhere.

Re: Python's “disappointing” superpowers

#26

Post by lostmsu » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 8:22 PM UTC

lordgroff wrote: post #6

I maintain Python code bases for a living, and feel that the language has simply been pushed too far. Static typing in Python doesn't give you the advantage of actually static typing and even IDE support is -- well it's not terrible, just not great. The thing is, once we go through all this static typing exercise in Python, we get no performance advantages, and the whole thing seems bolted on, with worse semantics th…

> Python remains a fantastic prototyping and scripting language

I think it sucks for prototyping too if your prototype is constantly evolving. I have a WIP with about 100 files in it that I've been aggressively evolving over the past year, and I already want to rewrite everything in something statically typed, because any kind of change became pain in the ass. Too bad the project requires Python-first libraries.

Re: Python's “disappointing” superpowers

#27

Post by scrollaway » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 8:24 PM UTC

wefarrell wrote: post #21

lordgroff wrote: post #6

I maintain Python code bases for a living, and feel that the language has simply been pushed too far. Static typing in Python doesn't give you the advantage of actually static typing and even IDE support is -- well it's not terrible, just not great. The thing is, once we go through all this static typing exercise in Python, we get no performance advantages, and the whole thing seems bolted on, with worse semantics th…

That's also true of Typescript, which has been wildly successful and taken over the javascript ecosystem. The main advantage of types is that it makes your code more maintainable by adding guardrails. You'll still possible run into issues at runtime and they're not perfect, but they're better than not having types at all.

Typescript really rarely feels bolted on to JavaScript. That also has to do with typescript introducing new syntax to JS.

Re: Python's “disappointing” superpowers

#28

Post by lostmsu » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 8:24 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #3

Is there any language out there that improves on Python in various ways but still allows convenient access to literally the entirety of Python's ecosystem of libraries?

Any .NET language with https://github.com/pythonnet/pythonnet

Re: Python's “disappointing” superpowers

#29

Post by mjr00 » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 8:26 PM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #25

lordgroff wrote: post #6

I maintain Python code bases for a living, and feel that the language has simply been pushed too far. Static typing in Python doesn't give you the advantage of actually static typing and even IDE support is -- well it's not terrible, just not great. The thing is, once we go through all this static typing exercise in Python, we get no performance advantages, and the whole thing seems bolted on, with worse semantics th…

> the whole thing seems bolted on, with worse semantics than most modern typed languages One of the biggest sources of ugliness is the "None". The standard way of declaring variables ahead of time is setting them to None. But then, the type hints just become these ugly unreadable Optional[ActualTypeofVar] everywhere.

That's because your type is Optional[TypeOfVar] though; if you try using that variable in a place that expects just TypeOfVar before it's set, you should get an error.

Re: Python's “disappointing” superpowers

#30

Post by KurtMueller » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 8:30 PM UTC

Python the language doesn't give you super powers and I would say that its clunkier and less elegant than Ruby and obviously not as powerful as languages like F#. Python's ecosystem and contributors are its biggest benefits and they help you succeed in spite of the language itself.