The problem is not Python 3, the problem is keeping both languages in my head at the same time. I'm tired of caring whether "print" is supposed to be a function or not, I just want to print something.
Python 3 in 2016
101–110 of 194 posts
Re: Python 3 in 2016
#102Since it's basically all anecdotal, I'll say my gazing-into-the-crystal-ball educated-guess feeling that Python 4 will make the entirety of Python about as popular as Perl is today if: it doesn't get rid of GIL and at the same time implement a JIT compiler, and at the same time remain 100% .py source-code compatible with Python 3. The developers have dug themselves into this mess with frivolous differences ("print" a…
Comments like this are so misguided and yet so common on HN. Adding a freaking JIT to CPython is a ridiculous suggestion that will never happen for a whole load of reasons. Getting rid of the GIL is more noble, but seems impossible to do without breaking compatibility. Python 4 will just be the next release after Python 3.9.
> Adding a freaking JIT to CPython is a ridiculous suggestion that will never happen for a whole load of reasons.
That's a bold statement. Can you elaborate on what those reasons are?
Re: Python 3 in 2016
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
But you have to build those with its dependencies. And the best thing Go came up with is vendorizing.
And good luck keeping everything updated. (Does go statically link the libc, too? If so, you should be rebuilding all your go applications right now, after the glibc issues reported on Tuesday…)
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Re: Python 3 in 2016
#104In practice: inheriting from "object" every time is not a big deal, but losing the possibility to use Pypy or Kivy is huge.
Re: Python 3 in 2016
#105Python3 is still broken in some important ways (virtual environments) on Debian/Ubuntu, which make it a but of a pain to use both in development and production.
Example: Ubuntu 14.04 (and later versions) come with Python 3.4, but pyvenv is unavailable (just try searching ubuntu 14.04 pyvenv to get an idea).
This bug from 2014 is still relevant, although at least the "python3.4-venv" package is available to patch it enough to get going. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python3.4/+bug/129...
Re: Python 3 in 2016
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "it doesn't get rid of GIL and at the same time implement a JIT compiler, and at the same time remain 100% .py source-code compatible with Python 3." Guido could do that if he decided that Python 4 would be based on PyPy (AFAIK, many people thought Python 3 would be based on PyPy too). Compatibility isn't 100% but if it was the main platform I'm sure it'd improve even faster.
There is also pyston, which is a 'competing' LLVM backed JIT that Dropbox is working on. Guido also happens to be working at Dropbox, but I don't know if he's directly involved with pyston or not. AFAIK, many people thought Python 3 would be based on PyPy too Don't think so. Some people hoped that Python 3 might be based on Unladen Swallow, which was a different Python JIT that Guido was working on while at Google, b…
>Guido also happens to be working at Dropbox, but I don't know if he's directly involved with pyston or not.
With the proviso that a lot can change in two years, here's a relevant comment from the Dropbox Pyston announcement [1]:
"Guido's advice has been extremely helpful, but so far we haven't been able to get any code from him"
[1]: https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2014/04/introducing-pyston-an...
Re: Python 3 in 2016
#107The PyPi download statistics are constantly being quoted as though the are some exact representation of the state of Python 3 takeup. I'm calling this as bullshit. How much of these downloads are computers auto updating their configurations? How, exactly, do these stats reflect the number of people developing current projects with Python 3? The number of legacy projects written in Python 2 will be vastly higher than…
Somehow Python 3 projects don't require updates? PyPI stats are going to be massively inflated due to Continous Integration and such but I don't see why that would tip the scales in one direction or the other by any significant amount.
The newer a pip, the more likely it is that it caches things for example. There a more things, I had long discussions with dstufft about it in the past.
Re: Python 3 in 2016
#108I think this is a nice healthy view to have about Python 2 to 3. Can't wait until python 4!
I seriously doubt 4 will include breaking changes, at least not to the semantics/syntax of the language itself. What python really needs in 4 is better unified package management and distribution support. They have a lot to learn from the Javascript and Ruby evosystems.
> I seriously doubt 4 will include breaking changes,
If it doesn't, it shouldn't be 4.
Re: Python 3 in 2016
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
For anything involving data analysis and scientific computing Python really shines - though I'm often surprised the extent to which web-oriented programmers are unaware of this, I read things like "you can write better web services in Go, therefore Python is obsolete". Python in science is kinda like the One Ring the Binds them - it is the glue that holds together the HPC code at CERN, ESA, NASA, and more, it crunche…
Two days ago I took a proof-of-concept project written in Python, using the GMPY2 library (Gnu Multiple Precision library), and ported it to C. My C code was very complicated in order to be fast. Lots of pointer swapping, bit-shifting, etc. The code was about 4% faster in C, which was more lines of code, much harder to read (and write), compiled with every imaginable flag that could offer a speedup. Switching operati…
All this because you didn't profile your code to see that 95% of the time was spent in GMP routines.
Re: Python 3 in 2016
#110I've done a lot of Python for many years and its all been Python 2. Python 3 seems to be a decent improvement, and if I was working on a Python 3 project, that would be fine. But when it comes to new projects, I struggle to find a compelling reason to use Python at all, when there are so many amazing languages now to choose from. With a new project you could choose Scala, Haskell, Clojure, Erlang (or Elixir) or Go. A…
I never thought I'd say it, but I'm loving programming the new ES2105 version of JavaScript. It really has a great deal in common with Python now. Clearly many programming languages are converging as they implement common good ideas from other programming languages. That's going to mean that whilst Python might have distinguished itself in the past for being streets ahead, in the future it's likely that many language…
> I never thought I'd say it, but I'm loving programming the new ES2105 version of JavaScript.
Well, yeah, I'm sure ES2105 is cool, but most of us don't have the choice of using languages from the next century.