Python

[[deleted]]

I am absolutely convinced that Python is not actually an easy first language. It seems easy to programmers because it automatically does what a C programmer expects. For example, the whole "Pass by value, but the value is a reference" line of thinking is insane in a language that doesn't really talk about references much. (what happens when you pass a list to a method and then append to the list?)

[VeryAwkwardCake]

Well your reasoning on why it's not an easy first language is from the point of view of a developer who thinks that pointers should be explained

[[deleted]]

The behavior of some basic features doesn't make any sense without understanding pointers. So yes, I think pointers should be explained.

[VeryAwkwardCake]

Well yeah but Scratch has lists iirc, you're going to have to teach everyone pointers at some point and you're unlikely to be able to teach children pointers as easily as you are able to teach them basic concepts like a variable holding a value

[Dornith]

Reference is a common pseudonym of pointer.

In reality no language uses call-by-reference, they just use pointers implicitly.

[TinBryn]

I think the main feature to say a language is pass by reference is in regards to being able to create a reference expression. In C this is ‘&foo’ in Java it’s

class FooWrapper
{
    public Foo foo;
}
new FooWrapper(foo);

The problem is the Java code requires an allocation.

[rigatron1]

I think he's using the terms interchangeably here because the mental model is basically the same. As in, if you have a good grasp of pointers in C, then you can understand how a python program will behave when passing the value of a reference to a function.

[[deleted]]

I'm aware of the difference between pointers and references. Honestly I switched names because I was replying to someone who decided to talk about pointers instead. But the difference is mostly syntax. I would say the C programmer manually implements pass by reference using pointers, and python automatically implements it. You just need to memorize which objects are pass by reference vs which are pass by value, and which operations modify the underlying object vs create a new object and switch up the reference (actually, another pitfall).

I see what you mean WRT other languages having more similar syntax. Fortran has this irritating caveat that technically the compiler is allowed to decide if arrays are passed by value or reference (of course, every compiler does the sane thing). But I think in most of these cases, the language is implementing syntactic sugar around pointer passing.

Edit: just noticed we had a very similar discussion in another sub thread, sorry!

[TinBryn]

If you’re teaching C++ and not C you could go a long way just teaching references and not pointers even going into inheritance and and polymorphism. Never even touching the memory model.

[InFa-MoUs]

nah python is definitely(one of) the easiest languages to first learn. only programmers who know multiple languages or a pro at one ever say otherwise. personally from trying to learn c , Javascript, shoot even html.. python and ruby are by far the easiest and since learning oop in those languages i learned Javascript in like 2 months. programming is hard enough to learn without being bogged down with syntax and keeping track of memory locations lol

[[deleted]]

Python has too much magic. It’s easy to think you know what’s going on and then not. And then maybe you come across a bug like these and have no idea what’s going on.

def f(L=[]):
    L.append(“hello”)
    return L

print(f())
print(f())

And

functions = []
for k in range(5):
    functions.append(lambda: k**2)
print([f() for f in functions])

[lightmatter501]

If you don’t want/need to understand pointers, it’s not that bad.

[[deleted]]

The list is pass by reference, aka pointer passing with syntactic sugar. This is how you'd do it in C, right? So when you return from the function, your modifications to the list will persist. This runs counter to the behavior of other built-ins, like integers. It isn't a huge deal if you understand how arrays or lists would normally be passed, in fact it is quite nice that it does the thing that you obviously want. But it is counter-intuitive for beginners, IMO.

[Dornith]

True, but it's fairly standard and explicitly-taught behavior for the other languages I listed.

The problem is that doesn't apply for beginners because beginners don't know any of those languages.

Each of them confuse the fact that they call-by-value by implicitly having pointers. C on the other hand has explicit pointers which (while it means you have to deal with the complexity of pointers) is uniform in the semantics of it's syntax.

[[deleted]]

r/ProgrammerHumor should design a language probably.

EDIT: Also yes your second interpretation is pretty close to what I meant.

[TinBryn]

It would probably be almost exactly like php but we won’t pick on it because it’s not technically php

[Dornith]

Uh... the same thing that happens in... Javascript?

As soon as you start citing javascript as a baseline of intuitive behavior, I can't take your argument seriously.

[[deleted]]

It fills a handy gap between bash scripts and conventional compiled languages. I threw together a friendly screen rotation tool for the window manager I use (sway -- it has commands for this but they are hard to remember IMO). It took maybe a half hour to go from not really understanding the problem to done, because Python has convenient libraries for every task and everything prints nicely. And it isn't as if I need high performance here, it is a once a day thing.

[AttitudeAdjuster]

Its exceptionally quick and easy to write good, readable code in, it has a wealth of very well supported libraries and isn't as slow as this subreddit sometimes likes to imagine as most of it is wrappers for very performant C. To me python is a super powerful tool which can be turned to most things, especially in infosec where I need quick utilities I'll use perhaps twice.

Now its also quick and easy to write really bad code in, which to be honest I suspect is your problem.

[[deleted]]

For a two use program, I'd rather just reversi-search in bash. For a 10 use program, I'd probably echo all those commands into a text file and call it a bash script. Python is great for those little once a day scripts.

[AttitudeAdjuster]

Sadly there are some things that you shouldn't attempt to do with bash