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Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

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Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#31

Post by wuschel »

donquichotte wrote: post #11
Rapzid wrote: post #5

I've recently had to start writing python professionally and I'm not super impressed. My previous python experience was writing small services and fixing others code. Now that I'm working on larger "apps" it feels like a 90's language with all the rough edges and warts. I'd rather being working in a language with better language services and tooling, but python has numpy and all these data viz libraries so whatcha go…

It IS a 90s language! ;-) My main issue with Python is distribution. Oh, you're using it on Windows? No worries, just install matplotlib using pip. Oh wait, you need to install cygwin and a C compiler and for some weird reason it won't compile but no worries there is a website with Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python Extension Packages but it's still not working.... Numerical computations and plotting are also my…

> Numerical computations and plotting are also my prime use cases for Python. IMO it's the only real competition to Matlab in this area.

What about Julia and R? I have never worked with them, I am just wondering that they are not mentioned.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#32

Post by tannhaeuser »

Rapzid wrote: post #5

I've recently had to start writing python professionally and I'm not super impressed. My previous python experience was writing small services and fixing others code. Now that I'm working on larger "apps" it feels like a 90's language with all the rough edges and warts. I'd rather being working in a language with better language services and tooling, but python has numpy and all these data viz libraries so whatcha go…

The other week I've learned a bit of Python history I didn't know about. After listening to Steve Pemberton's talk ([1]), guys in the audience with ties to CWI (Amsterdam uni) pointed out to me that the language he and his team were developing at CWI was the precursor of what came to be Python. Specifically, they did usability studies with non-developers (but still engineers) to come up with ABC/Python's syntax (see the linked talk). So I guess that's something to keep in mind when comparing Python to functional programming languages/idioms. Another language coming out of this line of thinking and generation of programming languages, for me, is AppleTalk (or was it AppleScript?), so it could've become much worse I guess.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQpqh98e9RgUcEmbXmI6R...

Edit: obligatory "what were they smoking" responses aside, anybody to chime in and complete/correct these early Python tidbits?

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#33

Post by greyman »

dorkygator wrote: post #17
greyman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But didn't Guido say that everything what could be backported was already backported? > There are a small handful of backwards incompatibilities introduced by Tauthon. How to understand this? Anyway, something like this was expected to happen. I wonder if it wouldn't be better if Guido would not halt python 2 development and just let it evolve.

He left the door open for the community to continue work on Python 2. It looks like somebody took up that offer.

Yes and no. Community can continue, but only under different name. So only fork is allowed.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#34

Post by pjmlp »

fnord123 wrote: post #25
donquichotte wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It IS a 90s language! ;-) My main issue with Python is distribution. Oh, you're using it on Windows? No worries, just install matplotlib using pip. Oh wait, you need to install cygwin and a C compiler and for some weird reason it won't compile but no worries there is a website with Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python Extension Packages but it's still not working.... Numerical computations and plotting are also my…

Windows still doesn't come with a C compiler? At least it finally comes with ssh, right?

UNIX also not, since Sun decided it was a good idea to sell the SDK separately, thus leading some companies to sponsor the until then largely ignored GCC.

The *BSDs and GNU/Linux variants are the exception to this.

In any case, Visual C++ and the plain command line SDK are a download away.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#35

Post by greyman »

mkesper wrote: post #22
greyman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But didn't Guido say that everything what could be backported was already backported? > There are a small handful of backwards incompatibilities introduced by Tauthon. How to understand this? Anyway, something like this was expected to happen. I wonder if it wouldn't be better if Guido would not halt python 2 development and just let it evolve.

This discussion goes now on since Python 3 was released. Python 2 will not be supported or developed after 2020.

Yes, I know. The question is if this decision is correct, given that apparently a lot of people and companies just doesn't plan to switch no matter what.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#36

Post by steinuil »

Certhas wrote: post #29
steinuil wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to work with Python a few times in the past year and I really have to agree. The lack of proper lambdas, closures, its reliance on mutable data structures and imperative idioms, and the useless distinction between statements and expressions makes it feel like somebody was trying to write a modern language but for some reason stopped halfway. For example: you can't assign the result of an "if" statement. Why? Be…

I extensively use closures in Python, particularly jit compiled closures with numba. I don't really have any problems with that, why do you say it's unpythonic?

I'm not saying they are, I don't think I've used the language enough to be able to tell what's pythonic and what's not. It's just that I think the language support could be better: why defining a function and calling it right after? That's what lambdas are for.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#37

Post by pjmlp »

Rapzid wrote: post #5

I've recently had to start writing python professionally and I'm not super impressed. My previous python experience was writing small services and fixing others code. Now that I'm working on larger "apps" it feels like a 90's language with all the rough edges and warts. I'd rather being working in a language with better language services and tooling, but python has numpy and all these data viz libraries so whatcha go…

I know Python since the 1.6 version, could never convince myself to use it for anything else other than plain scripts, specially when I can get better performance and overall workflows out of Lisp and ML derived languages, without having to rely on C.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#38

Post by StavrosK »

steinuil wrote: post #36
Certhas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I extensively use closures in Python, particularly jit compiled closures with numba. I don't really have any problems with that, why do you say it's unpythonic?

I'm not saying they are, I don't think I've used the language enough to be able to tell what's pythonic and what's not. It's just that I think the language support could be better: why defining a function and calling it right after? That's what lambdas are for.

> why defining a function and calling it right after?

Documentation.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#39

Post by dagw »

StreakyCobra wrote: post #30
daveguy wrote: post #4

The unofficial python 2.8 is here: https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon

Serious question: What are the reasons people are still preferring Python2 over Python3? (No troll intended)

No reason per se. Just that lots of people have lots of Python2 code and feel that Python3 doesn't offer anything interesting enough to make it worthwhile to go through the effort of porting their code.

Re: Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio]

#40

Post by StavrosK »

StreakyCobra wrote: post #30
daveguy wrote: post #4

The unofficial python 2.8 is here: https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon

Serious question: What are the reasons people are still preferring Python2 over Python3? (No troll intended)

Probably momentum? The only reason is if they are supporting an app that they don't want to move to 3. As a professional Python dev, I can see no other reason. All my new projects are in 3, and as far as I'm concerned, the debate was settled years ago (and there wasn't much of a debate anyway.
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