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I'm switching to Python and actually liking it

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Re: I'm switching to Python and actually liking it

#161

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

fiedzia wrote: post #103
NoboruWataya wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that magic method names generally all follow the same form so it's obvious that they are magic methods and not intended to be part of the public API. Whether that form uses double underscores or something else doesn't really matter to me as they are not being called directly.

> it's obvious that they are magic methods and not intended to be part of the public API Is there an alternative API? No. This is public API regardless of anyone's intentions. Though "it's weird" is really not a very strong argument against it.

There are several alternative API's. @dataclass is one, Pydantic offers another, there's also attrs, plus less general things like namedtuple.

Admittedly it's obnoxious when you've got habits for one and you're on a team that uses another--totally flies in the face of the zen re: "there should be only one obvious way to do things".

...but that was always a rather ambitious goal anyway. I'm ok navigating the forest of alternative API's if it means not being locked into something that I can only change by choosing an entirely different language. I'm happy that it's very easy to tell when somebody is mucking about with python internals vs when they're mucking about with some library or other.

Re: I'm switching to Python and actually liking it

#162

Post by arthurcolle »

gvalkov wrote: post #136
Mawr wrote: post #80

Just a small note on the code in the linked script: API_KEY = os.environ.get("YOUTUBE_API_KEY") CHANNEL_ID = os.environ.get("YOUTUBE_CHANNEL_ID") if not API_KEY or not CHANNEL_ID: print("Missing YOUTUBE_API_KEY or YOUTUBE_CHANNEL_ID.") exit(1) Presenting the user with "Missing X OR Y" when there's no reason that OR has to be there massively frustrates the user for the near zero benefit of having one fewer if statemen…

This is nitpicking, but this is a good usecase for the := operator: if not (API_KEY := os.getenv("API_KEY")): ... For internal tools I just let os.environ["API_KEY"] raise a KeyError. It's descriptive enough.

I always forget this syntax exists. When was this introduced?

Re: I'm switching to Python and actually liking it

#163

Post by wk_end »

jlarocco wrote: post #160

When did Python go out of fashion? This is the second article I've seen talking about it as if it's some kind abomination. I get that it's not the shiny new thing, but I don't understand people hating on it. Is this just junior devs who never learned it, or is there some new language out that I missed? (And please don't tell me Javascript....)

Yes, I'd say Python's crown as the go-to lightweight scripting and web development language was mostly ceded to JS.

It's still reigning champion of data science, and of course it has a huge number of uses and users still around, but it's not really cool or in vogue outside of those circles.

Re: I'm switching to Python and actually liking it

#164

Post by ravenstine »

jlarocco wrote: post #160

When did Python go out of fashion? This is the second article I've seen talking about it as if it's some kind abomination. I get that it's not the shiny new thing, but I don't understand people hating on it. Is this just junior devs who never learned it, or is there some new language out that I missed? (And please don't tell me Javascript....)

I personally dislike Python, but it does surprise me that anyone is acting like it's generally disliked because that has definitely not been my impression since time immemorial. I doubt that it's gone out of fashion. More likely, acting like something actually doesn't suck after all has become the clickbait framework du jour.

Re: I'm switching to Python and actually liking it

#165

Post by gvalkov »

arthurcolle wrote: post #162
gvalkov wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nitpicking, but this is a good usecase for the := operator: if not (API_KEY := os.getenv("API_KEY")): ... For internal tools I just let os.environ["API_KEY"] raise a KeyError. It's descriptive enough.

I always forget this syntax exists. When was this introduced?

In Python 3.8 - https://peps.python.org/pep-0572/

Re: I'm switching to Python and actually liking it

#166

Post by DangitBobby »

arthurcolle wrote: post #162
gvalkov wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nitpicking, but this is a good usecase for the := operator: if not (API_KEY := os.getenv("API_KEY")): ... For internal tools I just let os.environ["API_KEY"] raise a KeyError. It's descriptive enough.

I always forget this syntax exists. When was this introduced?

October 2019 in Python 3.8

https://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.8.html

Re: I'm switching to Python and actually liking it

#167

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

wiseowise wrote: post #13
reedf1 wrote: post #5

> Python has done a good job of hiding its legacy ugliness (such as __init__, __new__, and similar aberrations), swettening its syntax to accomodate developers with good taste. What exactly is the problem with __init__ or __new__? @dataclass is very nice syntactic sugar, but are we arguing here that having access to initializer/allocator/constructor dunder methods is "legacy ugliness"? This is the core of pythonic bu…

Bizarre is that you don’t consider it ugly. Kotlin: constructor is either part of class definition or keyword constructor. Ruby: initialize JS: constructor Python: ______new______, _______init_______ Literally this meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/three-headed-dragon

It's like the bright orange garments that hunters wear, the ugliness is sort of the point. It says "this is a different sort of thing."

Re: I'm switching to Python and actually liking it

#168

Post by 1ncunabula »

taosx wrote: post #53

Unpopular opinion: I think I’m going to wait for version 4 /jk. But honestly, I’ve been spoiled by modern languages like Rust, Go, and even TypeScript with modern tooling, strong typing, stability, and performance out of the box. Right now, I’m just interacting with LLMs, not building them. That said, I remember writing myself a note a few years ago to avoid Python projects. I had to clean up code from all over the c…

What makes TypeScript better than Python? I don't get it..

Re: I'm switching to Python and actually liking it

#169

Post by turtlebits »

CoolCold wrote: post #55

> Not only because the syntax is more human-friendly, but also because the Python interpreter is natively integrated in all Unix distros That's kind of very optimistic evaluation - literally anything beyond "import json" will likely lead you into the abyss of virtual envs. Running something created with say Python 3.13.x on Ubuntu 22.04 or even 24.04 (LTSs) / Rocky 9 and the whole can of worms opened. things like vir…

You should always use virtual envs. They're a single directory, how are they an abyss? Pip now complains if you try to install a package system wide.

Re: I'm switching to Python and actually liking it

#170

Post by turtlebits »

bborud wrote: post #47
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hasn't really been true for a while now. `uv` has radically improved the experience.

For the last 20 years that has been the mantra. Some X "solves" all the problems. Except it doesn't. It just creates another X that is popular for a while, and doesn't somehow retroactively "fix" all the chaotic projects that are a nightmare to install and upgrade. Yes, I understand people like Python. Yes, I understand the LLM bros love it. But in a real production environment, for real applications, you still want…

I've ignored the trends and just used the bog standard requirements.txt with pip and a virtualenv and have had no problems in the past 10+ years. Either way, you always want to catch production deploys if something breaks.
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