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Why Python is Important for You

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Re: Why Python is Important for You

#31

Post by berntb »

espeed wrote: post #24
wging wrote: post #11

As a commenter on the article wrote: what about Ruby? I say this as a happy Python user. Ruby seems very similar but I'm reminded of a pg essay on language power: looking up the power curve, you see '$Language plus a bit of weird stuff that is probably irrelevant.' So I don't trust myself. As someone who loves Python and doesn't know any Ruby beyond a few bits of syntax and the obvious bits that are common to most la…

Library support. For example, there really is no Ruby equivalent to SciPy, NumPy, Matplotlib or NLTK ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3179370 ). However, there has been some effort in the Ruby community to begin the process of developing some of these libraries (see SciRuby http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3180369 ). but the Python libraries have been in development for years so this will be no easy feat.

>> Library support.

Isn't that rather an argument for Java or Perl?

What I don't get is the cheerleading for Python? Ruby has/had something similar going with Rails. I mean, the article even notes that it is a middle of the road choice, optimised to not be extreme.

Re: Why Python is Important for You

#32

Post by hello_moto »

wging wrote: post #11

As a commenter on the article wrote: what about Ruby? I say this as a happy Python user. Ruby seems very similar but I'm reminded of a pg essay on language power: looking up the power curve, you see '$Language plus a bit of weird stuff that is probably irrelevant.' So I don't trust myself. As someone who loves Python and doesn't know any Ruby beyond a few bits of syntax and the obvious bits that are common to most la…

That depends on your taste buds. Mine prefer consistency. Ruby is a alippery slope when it comes to consistency and it requires the whole community to change certain attitudes.

Re: Why Python is Important for You

#33

Post by pjscott »

berntb wrote: post #31
espeed wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Library support. For example, there really is no Ruby equivalent to SciPy, NumPy, Matplotlib or NLTK ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3179370 ). However, there has been some effort in the Ruby community to begin the process of developing some of these libraries (see SciRuby http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3180369 ). but the Python libraries have been in development for years so this will be no easy feat.

>> Library support. Isn't that rather an argument for Java or Perl? What I don't get is the cheerleading for Python? Ruby has/had something similar going with Rails. I mean, the article even notes that it is a middle of the road choice, optimised to not be extreme.

It's an argument for any language that has libraries available, weighted by your need for those particular libraries and their quality.

Re: Why Python is Important for You

#34

Post by odiroot »

mekoka wrote: post #25
espeed wrote: post #17

Python doesn't have the glyph noise that brace-based languages do, and well-written Python is beautiful and easy to read. But lately I have been having an internal debate on whether using autodoc and inline docstrings detracts from its beauty and makes it harder to read because it reduces the amount of code you can see on the screen (see Steve Yegge's rant on this http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/02/portrait-of-n…

Docstrings should already be easy to detect by editors, so it would be trivial to add a show/hide functionality. Incidentally, one could also use Sphinx to create a plugin for that.

I just noticed Sublime Text 2 has an ability to fold multiline docstrings. If there only was a way to do this automatically.

Re: Why Python is Important for You

#35

Post by espeed »

berntb wrote: post #31
espeed wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Library support. For example, there really is no Ruby equivalent to SciPy, NumPy, Matplotlib or NLTK ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3179370 ). However, there has been some effort in the Ruby community to begin the process of developing some of these libraries (see SciRuby http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3180369 ). but the Python libraries have been in development for years so this will be no easy feat.

>> Library support. Isn't that rather an argument for Java or Perl? What I don't get is the cheerleading for Python? Ruby has/had something similar going with Rails. I mean, the article even notes that it is a middle of the road choice, optimised to not be extreme.

Yes, Java and Perl have large libraries, but wging asked what he would be missing going from Python to Ruby -- missing libraries is the big one.

Re: Why Python is Important for You

#36

Post by achompas »

pjscott wrote: post #33
berntb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Library support. Isn't that rather an argument for Java or Perl? What I don't get is the cheerleading for Python? Ruby has/had something similar going with Rails. I mean, the article even notes that it is a middle of the road choice, optimised to not be extreme.

It's an argument for any language that has libraries available, weighted by your need for those particular libraries and their quality.

Right, in addition to the usual efficiency concerns (can you afford that 0.5-1s of JVM spinup? do you need mature multiprocessing libraries?)

Re: Why Python is Important for You

#37

Post by bugsbunnyak »

keypusher wrote: post #13

I do love Python, but I often wish there was more rigor for some things. I currently work on a large project (>500K LOC) and have started to see it fall apart with a bigger team. Lack of enforced typing in function arguments, inability to create strict interfaces, inconsistency in standard library conventions, and package management would probably be my biggest gripes.

Curious: what is this 500k LOC project (if you can say) and how much of that is Python? If it's an in-house codebase that's a really neat datapoint because it would rank among the largest open-source Python projects..

Also, Traits (from Enthought) is an attempt to deal with some of the issues of typing and interfaces. It's led to some great software (the Chaco plotting package is fantastic, as is Mayavi), but I've yet to figure out how to debug a Traits error and stay sane. There is a lot of auto-configured magic that happens, and when something goes wrong the backtrace is often pages long and doesn't actually show the offending line.

Re: Why Python is Important for You

#38

Post by masklinn »

wging wrote: post #11

As a commenter on the article wrote: what about Ruby? I say this as a happy Python user. Ruby seems very similar but I'm reminded of a pg essay on language power: looking up the power curve, you see '$Language plus a bit of weird stuff that is probably irrelevant.' So I don't trust myself. As someone who loves Python and doesn't know any Ruby beyond a few bits of syntax and the obvious bits that are common to most la…

The downside of Ruby is the third-party packages, especially advanced/industrial-strength stuff (NumPy/SciPy for instance).

The main upside of Ruby is blocks, however limited (compared to Smalltalk's) the ability to craft your own control structures is incredibly powerful and empowering (and you can't really do that in Python, you can abuse decorators for it nowadays but it's not exactly sexy or readable, or generally a good idea)

Ruby also makes metaprogramming easier and more common, though the jury's still out on whether it's a good thing or not.

Re: Why Python is Important for You

#39

Post by olefoo »

user0398 wrote: post #20

Mostly true 'cept for pythons built in pasta makers: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0318/

Decorators can be misused, but they can also succinctly express an aspect of the program that is repeated many times in different contexts.

My own rule is that a decorator should do one thing, and that thing should be described by it's name.

Being able to look at a method that has the @has_permission decorator on it and know that it is getting checked for against a package wide permission model is more clear than having boilerplate to check permissions on every method that needs that check.

Any language construct can be misused. And people can hide stupid things in decorators and name them in misleading ways. That doesn't mean that it's the fault of the syntax.

Re: Why Python is Important for You

#40

Post by [deleted] »

yason wrote: post #6

It's important because it reminds me I should keep looking. I should keep looking instead of turning it into my Blub. I love Python but its boundaries have been hitting me frequently for years. There probably never will be a total sweet spot between functionality, syntax, compatibility, support, and platform-crossing but I know I have to keep looking for a language that's more sophisticated yet more practical.

[deleted]
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