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Why Python keeps growing, explained

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Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#251

Post by RSHEPP »

faizshah wrote: post #232
blensor wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to admit that I very often start the python repl to just do some simple calculations. I always have multiple terminals open so instead of opening a calculator I just use python in one of the terminals.

I also use a python repl as an alternative to excel or SQL. I find myself just downloading the data as a CSV and then quickly cooking up some pandas to get a graph or aggregate some stats, it’s just so much quick easier imo.

An alternative to pandas/Python for similar uses is https://www.visidata.org/. You can use Python in it also.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#252

Post by Ambix »

samwillis wrote: post #31

I have been a heavy Python user now about 15 years, but for me now I'm increasingly reaching for modern JavaScript and particularly TypeScript to do the things I would have traditionally done with Python. ES modules, fat arrow expressions, and all the other nice new syntax and library features have made the language so more pleasant to use. In many ways the ergonomics of TypeScript in particular are far superior to P…

> I haven't yet found a replacement for Django

Take a look here https://adonisjs.com

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#253

Post by crispyambulance »

osigurdson wrote: post #231
Yoric wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree with the description. What worries me, though, is that the features that make Python quite good at prototyping make it rather bad at auditing for safety and security. And we live in a world in which production code is prototyping code, which means that Python code that should have remained a quick experiment – and more often than not, written by people who are not that good at Python or don't care about…

Hey, it is better than programs written as Excel functions.

It is.

But I fear that the same folks that decried the use of excel by "the masses" are now just as horrified by the widespread usage of Python! :-)

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#254

Post by cwyers »

CipherThrowaway wrote: post #184
ubercore wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Python vs Rust is in no way in the same league as not having tests.

Totally agree. That's why I clarified: > I'm sure Rust was the wrong tool for the job in your case but I find this type of get shit done argument unpersuasive in general. Unless you're working on a fire-and-forget project with a tiny time horizon get shit done arguments are blatantly short-termist.

The thing is that the short term is much easier to predict what you're going to need and where the value is, and in the long term you might not even work on this codebase anymore. Lot of incentives to get things done in the short term.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#255

Post by jimbokun »

Gasp0de wrote: post #78
dagw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically something that takes 1 second in C++ will take 10 seconds (if you write efficient python and lean heavily on fast libraries) to 10 minutes in python. But the rest of your point stands

And how much code is generally written that actually is compute heavy? All the code I've ever written in my job is putting and retrieving data in databases and doing some basic calculations or decisions based on it.

Rule of thumb:

Code is "compute heavy" (could equally be memory heavy or IOPs heavy) if it's deployed into many servers or "the cloud" and many instances of it are running serving a lot of requests to a lot of users.

Then the finance people start to notice how much you are paying for those servers and suddenly serving the same number of users with less hardware becomes very significant for the company's bottom line.

The other big one is reducing notable latency for users of your software.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#256

Post by kayodelycaon »

blensor wrote: post #173
CE02 wrote: post #169

One thing I’d add to this conversation, though I’m certain it’s already been stated: As many have mentioned, there is a large subset of the user base that uses Python for applied purposes in unrelated fields that couldn’t care less about more granular aspects of optimization. I work as a research assistant for international finance faculty and I would say that compared to the average Hackernews reader, I’m technologi…

I hate to admit that I very often start the python repl to just do some simple calculations. I always have multiple terminals open so instead of opening a calculator I just use python in one of the terminals.

I don't see why that's something to be ashamed of. I frequently pop open a Ruby on Rails console for this purpose. (Basically ruby's repl + libraries and language extensions.)

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#257

Post by di456 »

Yoric wrote: post #214
pletnes wrote: post #11

Python keeps growing in number of users because it’s easy to get started, has libraries to load basically any data, and to perform any task. It’s frequently the second best language but it’s the second best language for anything. By the time a python programmer has «graduated» to learning a second language, exponential growth has created a bunch of new python programmers, most of which don’t consider themselves progr…

I fully agree with the description. What worries me, though, is that the features that make Python quite good at prototyping make it rather bad at auditing for safety and security. And we live in a world in which production code is prototyping code, which means that Python code that should have remained a quick experiment – and more often than not, written by people who are not that good at Python or don't care about…

> the features that make Python quite good at prototyping make it rather bad at auditing for safety and security

What's an example that makes it bad? Is it a case of the wrong tool for the job?

For example I understand that garbage collection languages shouldn't be used with real time systems like flight controllers.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#258

Post by ale42 »

joenot443 wrote: post #74
dagw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically something that takes 1 second in C++ will take 10 seconds (if you write efficient python and lean heavily on fast libraries) to 10 minutes in python. But the rest of your point stands

Damn! Is the rule of thumb really a 10x performance hit between Python/C++? I don’t doubt you’re correct, I’m just thinking of all the unnecessary cycles I put my poor CPU through.

It depends on what you're doing. If you load some data, process it with some Numpy routines (where speed-critical parts are implemented in C) and save a result, you can probably be almost as fast as C++... however if you write your algorithm fully in Python, you might have much worse results than being 10x slower. See for example: https://shvbsle.in/computers-are-fast-but-you-dont-know-it-p... (here they have ~4x speedup from good Python to unoptimized C++, and ~1000x from heavy Python to optimized one...)

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#259

Post by pkolaczk »

benrutter wrote: post #246
nindalf wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a whole bunch of the footguns Could you expand on this in the context of Rust?

Sure thing! Footguns might be the wrong word, and I know as a low level language Rust is insanely safe, but for a high level developer it's type system is gonna mean spending a lot of time in the compiler figuring out type errors, at least initially. That might not be a traditional footgun, but if you're just trying to, I dunno, build a crud api or something, its gonna nuke your development time. Please don't read th…

I find figuring out type errors is usually less work than figuring out the runtime bugs they prevented.

Re: Why Python keeps growing, explained

#260

Post by willseth »

And yet, GitHub seems to be in no rush to support Python in GitHub Packages https://github.com/orgs/github/projects/4247/views/1?filterQ.... This has been TBD status for years. Frustrating for anyone needing to manage private libraries and tools. And baffling, since Python is now the most popular language on their platform by most metrics https://madnight.github.io/githut
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