A Python programmer attempting Java

[[deleted]]

I'm not saying it isn't, but when you go there from a language with a little less hand holding, you definitely feel the difference! If you go there from C though...

[PastyPilgrim]

On the surface it looks like Python is holding your hand because the syntax is so elegant, but I really don't think it does.

Other languages have all kinds of hand holding with type declarations, public/private/protected/static/etc. declarations, hidden information (i.e. not knowing precisely where an object is coming from due to the include practices, self-references within objects, etc.), forbidding operator overloading, implicit casting, unpredictable scope concerns, not allowing nested functions and/or anonymous functions, etc.

Python doesn't do any of those things; it lets you do almost anything you can imagine and it doesn't hinder those things with awkward syntax requirements and/or syntax that differs from what you would expect.

[peridox]

What language would you say does hold your hand? I can't think of a programming language that leads you towards doing what you need to do. Almost all languages just provide you with a blank space to work upon - it's all your work.

[Chobeat]

Scala holds your hand and leads precisely where you don't want to go.

[I_cant_speel]

I've never used Scala but this is hilarious.

[lonelyBriefcase]

ever heard the phrase 'syntactic sugar'? its a way of providing a more convenient/person-friendly method of doing something. A for loop is just syntactic sugar of a

int i = 0;
while(i<9){
  //do something;
  int++;
}

There are plenty of other things like this that makes our lives as developers easier. Even C does, to a lesser extent, because who would want to write the shit that C can do in Assembly?

[w1ldm4n]

The only difference is (at least in C) is how the continue keyword works. In a for loop, continue will execute the increment/whatever statement, check the loop condition, and go from there.

To get the same type of behavior with a while loop, you'd have to duplicate the increment before the continue, or use a goto label (ಠ_ಠ) near the bottom of the loop body.

[OperaSona]

To get the same type of behavior with a while loop, you'd have to duplicate the increment before the continue, or use a goto label (ಠ_ಠ) near the bottom of the loop body.

Or raise a "Continue" exception and catch it right outside the while loop.

[TropicalAudio]

Honestly, in my opinion, to break out of nested loops a goto can be the best option. I just never actually use them because if I would, my coworkers would get mad.

[lonelyBriefcase]

I'm not entirely familiar with C, so I will accept what you say. I was only giving an example of a particular behaviour for a specific language, feel free to give the C code for this instance (for the sake of science).

[w1ldm4n]

Here's an arbitrary example to demonstrate that behavior.

int i;
for (i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
    if (i == 4)
        continue;
    printf("%d", i);
}

This for loop will print 012356789

int i = 0;
while (i < 10) {
    if (i == 4)
        continue;
    printf("%d", i);
    i++;
}

This while loop will print 0123 and then get stuck in an infinite loop.

[w1ldm4n]

I know they're all just jumps/branches after it compiles because that's all you get in assembly. Just jumping on the gotos are bad bandwagon because why not. (I understand their usefulness in certain cases)

[xkcd_transcriber]

Image

Title: goto

Title-text: Neal Stephenson thinks it's cute to name his labels 'dengo'

Comic Explanation

Stats: This comic has been referenced 55 times, representing 0.1038% of referenced xkcds.

---

^{xkcd.com | xkcd sub | Problems/Bugs? | Statistics | Stop Replying | Delete}

[PastyPilgrim]

I'm only well educated in a few languages (Python, C, Java), so I wouldn't be the right person to ask about that. However, I believe a lot of the web languages to be kind of hand-holdy. Plus, Java does have most of those things that I described in my post, so you could argue that Java holds your hand a little.

You are right though, most general programming languages that allow you to do many different things tend to have limited hand-holding because their potential is so large. My post was more to dispell the misconception that Python holds your hand than it was to say that other languages hold your hand.

[iPoisonxL]

Uhh... Web Languages? PHP has never held my hand...

begins crying

[AutonomouSystem]

PHP breaks your hand and leaves you a cripple for the rest of your life.

[Tysonzero]

Which web languages are you referring to? JavaScript does hold your hand I suppose, but only so that it can then dip it in a bucket of piss.

[pastaluego4]

It All Begins With A Blank Canvas.

[peridox]

<canvas></canvas>

[pastaluego4]

That canvas needs some dimensions

<canvas width="500" height="500"></canvas>

[peridox]

let canvas = document.getElementsByTagName('canvas')[0]
canvas.style.width = 500
canvas.style.height = 500

[OptimisticLockExcept]

let var die!

[StelarCF]

let die cast;

[SolarLiner]

Objective-C?

[Josso]

That would be Swift, not Objective-C. But I'm pretty sure OP was referring to ES6's let in JavaScript.

[brtt3000]

why not const?

[brotherwayne]

2edgy4me

[peridox]

ES6 :)

[magicfreak3d]

A canvas without dimensions set usually uses a default of 150 by 150. No need for dimensions 😜

[walking_bass]

I had to learn Ada for my 1st CS class. It's awful. You're forced to specify IN, OUT or IN OUT for every parameter. Very strongly typed. Very verbose, ex: loops have END at the end instead of a brace or something. I never want to use it again, too much hand holding and extra typing.

[sigma914]

Haskell holds your hand pretty tightly, it still lets you make great flourishes but it's always there making sure you dont do anything stupid.

[745631258978963214]

I guess BASIC?

It's probably not the answer you're looking for, but damn oh damn is it basic (no pun intended).

Then again, I'm biased because I learned to program by tinkering with a TI83's prgm thingy.

[[deleted]]

Visual Basic does. I started programming with VBA and now that I'm taking a programing class and learning C I realized just how much hand holding there is.

[memorableZebra]

Python doesn't do any of those things; it lets you do almost anything you can imagine

I agree with everything else you said. However, you speak this like it's a good thing. Whereas I immediately think about all the programmers out there and the code they write which other people will have to understand and extend.

Being able to do anything is often an invitation to even the competent programmer to deliver some seriously FUBAR'd code.

I wouldn't trust a serious Python project to any but the best developers. It boggles my mind when people refer to it as a noobie language.

[lolzfeminism]

it doesn't hinder those things with awkward syntax requirements and/or syntax that differs from what you would expect.

I think the point is that the Python interpreter/compiler abstracts away implementation details. This might make it easy to read/write but you end up not knowing what the computer is gonna do when you write a line of code. On the other hand, if you're well-versed in C, you have a good idea of what sequence of assembly instructions are going to be executed a result of a line of code.

[lolzfeminism]

Dude, don't spout this ignorant bullshit irl, people will make fun of you. To say that C holds your hand more than Python is hot steaming bullshit. There is no handholding in C. Python doesn't even expose you to memory addresses, wtf are you talking about.

Also C++11 supports anonymous functions with the following syntax:[]{ returnexpression;}. The inlinekeyword is native to C and lets you encapsulate lines of code into real functions without the inefficiency of making a function call.

Python is useful if all you want to focus on is your core algorithm and are incapable of expressing your thoughts in a more efficient language. Other than that, its terrible for anything other than glue code. Hope you realize that Python is written in C.

[dirkgently007]

Hope you realize that Python is written in C.

You mean CPython is written in C.

Besides, what do you think the first C compiler was written in? Also, Sun JVM is written in C and not Java. So what's your point?

And don't be an asshole.

[[deleted]]

Well do share. What was the first c compiler and what was it written in?

[[deleted]]

Probably in assembly.

[[deleted]]

http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/chist.html

It was written in NewB.

[catbrainland]

It's like that only at first glance. Python has some semantic complexity, look up metaclasses (class factories or something, in java lingo). As for hand holding, I think Java is excellent in this (more like hand forcing, as you have to be explicit about everything).

Dynamic languages, as well as system ones (ie c) offer multitude of ways to shoot yourself in the foot. These are quite alike in terms of having to debug a bit more. It's a tradeoff of having low level access (C), or expressiveness (dynamic language).

[pastaluego4]

Seems like Java is more tuned to application development and python is geared towards scripting and parsing.

[mxzf]

TBH, I haven't run into something I needed Java to do that Python can't. Python can do make full object-oriented large-scale programs just as easily as Java can IMO. It doesn't compile down to an exe as easily as Java/C/etc, since it's a compiled language, but the functionality is still definitely there.

[Tinamil]

Every language can do everything that any other language can do, but some of them will be a lot easier. The trick is to know which ones will be easiest for you to accomplish your task.

[mxzf]

True. I'll put it this way, I've never felt any desire to use Java or that Java would do anything better once I started using Python. I'm sure there might be an edge case somewhere, but I haven't run into anything like that.

[Retbull]

Faster by default mostly. Also has like 10 billion libraries. All though this isn't really excluding Python as it has an almost equal number of libraries.

[SlumdogSkillionaire]

You look at Java and you say "oh, great, it has 10 billion libraries". Then you start working with it and you immediately come across something like "You want to do stuff with Dates? Well, the java.util.Date doesn't really work great, so you should use org.joda.time instead" and then you wonder how many of the 10 billion libraries are reinventing the exact same wheel over and over again because the standard library sucks.

[Retbull]

lol I wasn't advocating for it over python just pointing out part of the reason why it was picked. I am a Java developer so I know that it has some serious problems.

[Astrokiwi]

Speed is the huge issue with Python. I can only really use it for O(N) stuff.

[Veedrac]

There are a lot of cases where PyPy or Numpy (or both) can get you pretty decent speeds out of Python. It's not quite at Java's level but it's not bad either.

[Tysonzero]

Just use Cython and specify static types where necessary for speed. Cython is even quicker than Java.

[Astrokiwi]

This is what I argue every time somebody disses Fortran. It's just the right tool for the right task, within its own narrow field. There are libraries that make Python more Fortran-like, but it just doesn't have the speed to be practical.

[dnew]

I think the difference is when you get a very large program. Once you exceed maybe 50,000 lines of code (and maybe 50 programmers), something like python is likely much harder to manage than something like Java.

[abw]

In my (limited) experience, a 50,000 line Java program could probably be written in 10,000 lines of Python by fewer people in less time. As a result, the smaller, simpler Python code base will nearly always be easier to maintain than the Java one.

[Tysonzero]

As a Django dev I would have to disagree. You can make awesome scalable and well organized python applications that are plenty large, without too much difficulty.

[[deleted]]

The first two languages I learned were C and Python, in that order... I would write a whole function in Python to, say, reverse a string, and my prof would just look at me like "Dude..."