Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I'm switching to Python and actually liking it

cesarsotovalero.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 718 posts

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

#241

Post by theLiminator »

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…

I don't have a strong love for python, but all the tooling the author mentioned has actually made python fairly decent to use now.

Still could be better, but I think Python's really hit its stride now.

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

#242

Post by rs186 »

guhcampos wrote: post #175
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....)

Apparently the author used to be a Java person. I have this feeling - or prejudice - that people still in the Java World are a bit out of tune with the tech industry, working on huge legacy projects on big retail or US banking. These people tend to be conservative and resistant to change, so maybe that's where these types of articles are coming from.

I think at least half of amazon.com and AWS run on Java.

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

#243

Post by zanellato19 »

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…

Some of the biggest codebases in the world are in Python, this is a bizarre statement that reeks of the hn superiority complex.

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

#244

Post by frutiger »

tombert wrote: post #224
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would you want a lambda to span multiple lines? How would that be any better than a function?

Because sometimes I want to have logic that spans multiple lines and I don't want to assign it a name. An easy example might be something with a `map` or a filter. For example, in JavaScript [1,2,3,4].filter(x => { let z = x * 2; let y = x * 3; let a = x / 2; return (z + x * a) % 27 == 2; }); Obviously I know I could name this function and feed it in, but for one-off logic like this I feel a lambda is descriptive eno…

Off topic: you didn’t use y.

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

#245

Post by biztos »

ajkjk wrote: post #183
stanleydrew wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this just junior devs who never learned it Seems more like it's fallen out of favor with senior devs who have moved to Go/Rust.

you'd be crazy (senior or not) not to use Go for Go stuff and Python for Python stuff

I use both, with a preference for Go but I feel like I should be doing more Python just to keep it fresh.

It seems like two of the main entries under “Python stuff” are “working with people who only know Python” and “AI/ML because of available packages.”

What are some others?

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

#246

Post by taeric »

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 think for a lot of us, it was very frustrating when it was being pushed with no real analog for the practices we had in other languages. Poetry used to be pushed as how to do dependency management, but it was not obvious that it was not necessarily your build manager, as well. Even today, I'm not entirely clear what the standard approach is for how to manage a project. :(

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

#247

Post by dccsillag »

jonas21 wrote: post #233
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....)

A decade ago, Python was pretty rough around the edges in production. Of course you could make it work, but you had to sacrifice a lot in terms of: - Environment / dependency management - Type safety - Performance As the author points out, these have largely been addressed now by uv, type hints, pydantic, FastAPI, etc.

Typing still sucks big time. Same for perf, unless you are working with numerics that fit with something like NumPy or JAX.

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

#248

Post by mey »

deepsun wrote: post #236
bunderbunder wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java shops are certainly where I've witnessed the most disdain for Python. IME the strongest feelings tend to come from people who didn't actually have any significant experience with Python, and perhaps don't even have much practical experience with any language that isn't Java. So they tended to consider it to be objectively inferior purely because it's interpreted and dynamically typed. At a previous job I did man…

I have way more experience with Python than Java. In at least 4 companies (including Google that I wouldn't call a javashop) we used mainly Python. Still I believe Java is a better application language. Python is a better scripting language (replacement for Bash). Small apps tend to be easier on Python, but large apps are way easier on Java, both for syntax (types) and ecosystem (libs).

That is general take as well. A lot of small apps/simulators are in python. Ops scripts tend to be python. Java for the core/data. Refactoring/tooling is easier in Java when you are dealing with a 100k codebase imo. Typescript always.

Seen plenty of coding horrors in both ecosystems...

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

#249

Post by ddejohn »

tombert wrote: post #224
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would you want a lambda to span multiple lines? How would that be any better than a function?

Because sometimes I want to have logic that spans multiple lines and I don't want to assign it a name. An easy example might be something with a `map` or a filter. For example, in JavaScript [1,2,3,4].filter(x => { let z = x * 2; let y = x * 3; let a = x / 2; return (z + x * a) % 27 == 2; }); Obviously I know I could name this function and feed it in, but for one-off logic like this I feel a lambda is descriptive eno…

> Obviously I know I could name this function and feed it in, but for one-off logic like this I feel a lambda is descriptive enough and I like that it can be done in-place.

FWIW, you'd also have the benefit of being able to unit test your logic.

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

#250

Post by viccis »

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…

>Except it doesn't.

That is only true if you never reexamine the universality of your statement. I promise that it is possible to "solve" the mess that was Python's ecosystem, that uv has largely done so, and that your preconceptions are holding you back from taking advantage of it.

Post reply on HN