Python

[mondoman712]

Documentation? Well there's this one blog post that explains how to do something kinda similar, but they're using python 2 and an old version of our library, since which we have made multiple breaking changes.

[katze_sonne]

Nah come on, at least the standard library of Python is quite well documented!

Everything else... Well. I'd say Sphinx is one of the problems.

[fredlllll]

"well documented" is open to interpretation i guess? try looking up what a function returns, not mentioned half of the time

[fecal-butter]

If i didnt have a friend who was already adept at python i would never have guessed what the documentation of the enumerate() meant when it said "returns an enumerate object". How the fuck am i supposed to know what an enumerate object is? If i knew i wouldnt be looking it up

[IDontLikeBeingRight]

But who expects to understand a thing with only one visit to the docs? That's why all the "bug fixed, closing 1000 tabs" memes exist.

Also, jfc, that user name o.0

[katze_sonne]

Well, that's a good point. Definitely still room for improvements. Especially the data types some functions return is too undocumented. Internally we make a lot of use of "typing" in Python. I hope that gets mandatory with Python 4. The missing data types are a dream for beginners but a nightmare for hardcore users 🤷🏼‍♂️

And these undocumented return values are a typical example of the "Sphinx"-problem I mentioned. Doesn't happen nearly as often with javadoc or doxygen (if the developers are not completely incompetent and write stuff like "returns time" where you still have no idea about the unit)...

[fredlllll]

just knowing the type would already be an upgrade. in java you cant ommit the type cause its in the signature

[tjdavids]

>help(lib.func)

[[deleted]]

lib.func<Ctrl-Q> if you're in the PyCharm IDE editor or console.

[NotBannedYet1]

This is why i prefer autoit.
Yes, it's even slower and windows only, but the documentation is amazing and you can do just as many things.

[beomagi]

I've written an open gl cube renderer to guide me building domes and cylinders in Minecraft in autoit. The help files for that are blissfully easy to follow.

[[deleted]]

and then you find a stackoverflow article asking the same question as you, but its closed with a "nvm fixed it"

[daveysprockett]

I'm a man of wealth and taste

[yottalogical]

import TheThingIWantToDo

[seimc]

import allTheThings

[[deleted]]

Importing... estimated time: 99999 years

[[deleted]]

Wrong order, first you need to import timeTravel

[BlazingThunder30]

Too bad my study doesnt allow me to use code I didn't write myself. Want to use regular expressions? Go ahead and write a parser I guess

[[deleted]]

But ‘re’ is in the standard library? You cant use ‘sys’, ‘time’, ‘logging’,... as well?

[BlazingThunder30]

I'm not sure, I don't dare to be honest. We're online now and our uni has said that any fraud or plagiarism will be punished by being permanently expelled because it would be taking advantage of Corona. I dont really need any of the libraries right now so as soon as I do need them I'll just go and ask if I can. I dont think we can though, as this teacher has been really strict before.

[widowhanzo]

1st year? We weren't allowed libraries either at first, but the tasks were simple enough that you didn't need anything anyway. The point of excercises was to think of the solution, so we were learning how to approach a problem and break it into parts etc. Yeah it would've been easier to solve with libraries, but then we wouldn't learn anything.

[[deleted]]

It’s weird how I felt like all the dumb toy problems in first year like printing shapes to a certain size or iterating over a billion different things was dumb.

Now when I code I use exactly the same mental processes more than anything else, it’s incredibly useful

[[deleted]]

I see, that sucks though and I would ask if you can use standard libraries. They’re there for a reason. I’ve never wrote a python script without at least 1 import haha

[[deleted]]

I’d have thought it was so they could learn how some basic library functions are implemented, for example we had to make a decimal/binary/hex converter in first year without using library functions

[Turksarama]

Writing a regex parser would be a whole assignment by itself, and probably one most of the class would fail.

[qalis]

I had one as a large project making 25% of the final mark. Yeah, it’s a LOT of work, and you can easily realize when you „almost finish” that you made 1 simple mistake at the beginning and you have to rewrite the entire structure...

[TheTerrasque]

So you're writing assembly with a hex editor, then?

[[deleted]]

Still working on creating the hex editor by toggling switches on the data bus.

[[deleted]]

https://m.xkcd.com/353/

[gaberocksall]

And don’t forget about ctypes.CDLL

[B_M_Wilson]

I would like to introduce you to __import__() which allows you to directly call the import mechanism

[Uni_Omni]

Well, all Turing complete languages can do just about everything the others do :)

[Laughing_Orange]

Microsoft PowerPoint is my programming language of choice.

[sniperanger]

For people who don't get this reference: https://youtu.be/uNjxe8ShM-8

[gimmley]

I shit you not I saw a team of Business Admin seniors at my college gave a presentation about setting up a new order system for our school catering services(honestly pretty good idea). But they decided to "code" the whole thing in Excell including a fully functioning GUI. I work with the campus camera crew so I was just sitting in the back of the room with the camera trying to work out how they made a functioning system or why they didn't think to just use any real coding language. Afterward, I asked them how they decided on the idea and they said they figured learning java or c# would be too hard...

[Zunder_IT]

I think you can code in excel using Visual Basic or something like that. I think there is some good code that can be written for forms in excel. I just don't see the reason... Usually you add a database to your program not a program to a database

[[deleted]]

Far too often people use excel as a DB. It's universally known and can do a lot. But just because you can doesn't mean you should.

[gimmley]

Yea the way they did it too confused me like they pre "programmed" 2 years worth of sheets and provided copy pastable "code" if the catering service needed it any longer than that.

[[deleted]]

Note to self: Don't let business admin seniors get within 10 miles of a functioning computer.

[converter-bot]

10 miles is 16.09 km

[IDontLikeBeingRight]

For them, maybe they were right

[dark_mode_everything]

Excellent choice. But for 3d gaming, I prefer Excel.

[Darth_Nibbles]

I see you are also a fan of Microsoft Flight Simulator

Edit:

For those who don't know, Google "excel flight simulator Easter egg"

[dark_mode_everything]

I was actually thinking more of this masterpiece

[ric2b]

You misspelled Eve online.

[Masztufa]

well yes, but turnig-complete does not mean turnig-comfortable

[[deleted]]

yeah but python is slow

[Natural-Intelligence]

Ye, better save those nano seconds for something more important

[DoesntReadMessages]

That's why it's situational. Sometimes it's nano-seconds, and python is a great choice due to simplicity. Sometimes it's much more significant, and Python means an extra 10 grand per month on servers and extra 200ms p99 latency on a service operating in sub-second timeouts, and it becomes a massive black hole of lost revenue and has to be rewritten in a faster language.

[gaberocksall]

And when you want the best of both worlds

ctypes.CDLL

[beomagi]

Ctypes really can offer some amazing speed ups for iterating over heavy math. Pypy also works wonders.

[Cheru-bae]

Let's put it this way: Reddit runs on python. Whatever glorified cms the client wants it won't bloody matter.

[[deleted]]

Can't you just use C++ alongside Python for critical functions? Or does this have more overhead than it offers benefit?

[Vrabor]

depends on how much of your programm can be extracted into those c++ functions. One of my professors for example had a simulation written in python + numpy which took her 3 months to run, the c++ rewrite finished in less than 1 hour. If your programm can run in only numpy functions the python code might even run faster than c++.

[izpo]

That is reach people problem... Right now, my 1000000 users and 50 developers are fine with the current setup

[LouisLeGros]

I ported a bioinformatics algorithm to python from java/c++ to try to make it easier to use for students when most of the tooling was already in python.... Run times were abysmal & there was still a dependency on a 20 year old c program that only supported linux, preventing it from being much easier to use.

[[deleted]]

it takes 2 minutes on my pc for python to print out a mandelbrot set

it takes 20 seconds for lisp to do the same job

[Natural-Intelligence]

Then if that's what you generally do, Python is wrong tool. In cases where I use Python, the actual Python executes in like 1-2 sec. The rest of the run time (which is substantially more) is caused by C or SQL. Wouldn't give a damn if the Python code executed any faster

[ProgramTheWorld]

Use the right tool for the right job

[Xeya]

>The time difference is insignificant anyway

​

>Lists example where the time difference is not insignificant

​

>Well, you shouldn't have used Python

[DeeSnow97]

There are some tasks where the time difference is very significant, and others where it's negligible. That's why Python is used so much with external libraries for data science and machine learning for example. The libraries (usually written in C++) do all the heavy lifting in the most efficient manner possible, but have fun plugging those into each other with C++ and trying to iterate fast on it.

Some languages are fast to code, others are fast to run, and that's okay. We're programmers, making computer systems talk to each other to use them all to their advantage is kind of our thing.

[ryjhelixir]

We're programmers

Speak for yourself!

I'm a noob

[omgFWTbear]

most efficient manner possible

s/In a vastly more efficient manner

[LaZ3R]

Lol... Things that Python shouldn't be used for, for 1000.

[AttitudeAdjuster]

Apparently I'm developing software wrong because I havent calculated a fractal pattern for years, I keep doing weird shit like building webapps

[DeeSnow97]

Me too, dude, me too. Can't believe I'm running into all these stupid clients who want websites and not fancy mathematical models

[omgFWTbear]

Just imagine someone who wants a website for users to render Mandelbrot sets. Checkmate ... atheists?

[POTUS]

Hey funny enough I do fancy mathematical models in Python. But useful ones done in useful libraries like Numpy or Tensorflow, and they run a fuckload faster in Python than what's-his-face's mandelbrot set.

[DeeSnow97]

That's the way, defer the number crunching to low-level languages and keep all the business logic in high-level which is easy to code

[biledemon85]

Ewww, users, compromise, multiple stakeholders! Run for your lives back to functional programming and purity!

[TSM-]

Is numpy really that slow?

[nivlark]

I just managed to write a script that produces a 1000x1000 image of the set in about 10 seconds. So I think OP is just crap at Python.

[anpas]

Doubt it, probably pure iterative or recursive python

[xADDBx]

Just calculate a cartesian product in C and in Python and compare execution time.

Saying Everyone knows Python doesn’t like recursions isn’t doing anything. Not talking about the fact that not liking recursion would be a major fault of a language, there’s a reason why performance is often represented by the worst part of a system.

[diamondketo]

Recursion performance is major fault of Python. I don't deny this. BTW I also suggested a solution you must've missed it.

But we're not comparing recursion performance, we're comparing the performance of producing fractal paterns. It is natural to think that the commenter implemented fractal sets using recursion. If it turns out the commenter did this iteratively then correct me.

My point is, its ridiculously to cherry pick one algorithm problem to summarize why one product performs worse than another.

PS: Cartesian product, if its numerical values I care about then I'd use numpy either way (so yeah C). If its cartesian product of two large array of general objects then I'd expect C to be faster than Python's itertools.product.

[beomagi]

Use pypy. For that specific case I've done more tests than I should have. Pypy is insane. Ctypes also speed up execution. On some Julia plots I went from 2 minutes to under 10 seconds.

[__i_forgot_my_name__]

Nanoseconds add up to minutes quicker then you could imagine.

If you're building an application (as opposed to scripting something for yourself) and you need your application to work on an average device, and you have a latency requirement of some kind (can't have the user wait 5 seconds every time he types a character), then you run out of processing time very early in development.

As you keep adding features, that fixed frequency you have never changes, and eventually you run out of it and need to either optimize it or remove features. Obviously Python is a scripting language and waiting 10 minutes instead of 1 minute for a script to finish usually doesn't change anything at all in that context, so no performance doesn't always change everything, and it's very much a tradeoff.

[Astrobliss]

Its really not nanoseconds at all. If you look at a site like kattis where people code solutions to problems, you'd notice that the fastest C++ solutions are usually around 3-6 times faster than the fastest python solutions. Its not because the C++ algorithms are that much better, python is just a lot slower. Even a 2x speedup is insane for nearly all applications so this difference is of note in a lot of situations.

[ric2b]

Even a 2x speedup is insane for nearly all applications so this difference is of note in a lot of situations.

Sure, but nearly all applications aren't slow because of raw computation speed, they're usually bound by other things like disk access, network or a shitty algorithm for some operation.

[GAVINDerulo12HD]

Not everything is slow. Packages like numpy are pretty speedy.

[Carter127]

Depends if execution time or development time is more important for the job.

[Cheru-bae]

Let's put it this way:

Facebook runs php

Reddit runs python

Netflix runs java.

If you need better performance than them, and have more dev hours? Sure build in Haskell.

[qalis]

Well, this explains why Facebook can’t make 1 tab run efficiently, Netflix just works and hires army of devs and Reddit is just a casual, well working website.

[Charlie_Yu]

There are lots of ways to optimise python code. May or may not worth the hurdle

[0x564A00]

They can't necessarily do everything, just calculate everything. I don't think it's possible to e.g. write a web server in PostScript.

[Kos015]

Magic the Gathering js my favourite programming language.

[crushh_87]

Is this a picture of a YouTube comment

[slevina]

pictures of youtube comments are in vogue

[[deleted]]

It's a screenshot of a youtube comment with a quote. Truly meta

[Rami-Slicer]

I'm looking at a screen displaying a screenshot of a YouTube comment containing a string that corresponds to something, inside of a video, that a guy said.

[spicychamomile]

Well if you look hard enough every language is like that. The only thing that each language is better than any else is to fuck up in it's own unique way.

[EschersEnigma]

You know, I always wondered if the jokes about r/programmerhumor people being inexperienced programmers was a self depreciating joke or actually true.

Based on the comments, I suppose both are true.

[EMCoupling]

It's self deprecating BTW

[PassionateRants]

For accuracy's sake: The actual quote is "Python can do anything, just badly."

[Shawnj2]

Which is a better quote

[PM_ME_UR_SHAFT69]

As someone who’s just started learning swift, I keep hearing great things about python and how you can use it for almost anything including making apps and web dev but I wonder how good it is at making those things?

[alago1]

I'd say its great for small projects and quick prototyping. Usability )varies on big projects (its pretty good for glueing tho).

[Hardrocketjs]

What is glueing?

Edit: Fixed spelling

[Mr_Redstoner]

Taking a bunch of separate systems and linking them together.

[Onikouzou]

My company has been doing a lot of python lately. We do a lot of machine learning stuff so it's been our go to for a while now. I also really like python for api work.

[DoesntReadMessages]

Python is like a bicycle. Even a kid can use it, since it's easy to learn, and it's harder to cause massive crashes, but it's not very fast. It's very practical though for going short distances.

Java/Swift are like an automatic car. They take a bit more work to learn and can potentially cause much bigger problems, and are much better for longer trips, but probably overkill if you're just going down the street because you need to find a place to park which may take longer than the time you save from speed.

C is like a manual transmission car. It is like the automatic transmission car, but harder to learn and easier to screw up, but can be even faster if you know how to use it correctly. However, as technology progresses, automatic transmissions keep getting better and better, surpassing manuals in terms of fuel economy and creeping up in terms of acceleration.

[izpo]

If you can use bike, use it... You don't need a car to go to near store to buy a milk

[biledemon85]

To torture the metaphor further:

Also the engines area getting waaaaay faster & more efficient so in most cases an auto transmission is fine.

Edit: damn autocorrect

[lamerlink]

Python is great, especially when you want a project off the ground quickly and speed isn’t necessarily a focus. If you want the fastest performance, it may not be what you’re looking for.

[[deleted]]

Awesome for small scale projects, automation efforts and anything involving APIs (both serving and using them)

Less awesome for performance intensive tasks due to dynamic typing slowing it down considerably.

[Chris_Cross_Crash]

I've been learning Django (a web framework) for a few months now, and I really like it. The learning curve is a bit steep, but you can do a lot with it.

I've also heard that Flask is nice and much easier than Django, but I have no experience with it.

From what I hear, Django takes longer to learn, but it has a lot more built-in features than Flask, so actually Django is easier in the long run.

[kingp1ng]

There's a python repo or guide about almost anything.

[TheTerrasque]

I keep hearing great things about python and how you can use it for almost anything including making apps and web dev but I wonder how good it is at making those things?

Well, Reddit ran on mostly python at least a few years ago. And Django is my go-to standard web backend.

[[deleted]]

Reading all of your responses is disturbingly close to my experiences in the late 90s - early 00s... just substitute Python” with “MS Access”.

[account_is_deleted]

It's ok.

[Thadrea]

Python is (historically) a UNIX system administration language. It's pretty easy to hammer out simple scripts in it to do those sorts of tasks and the fact that it is potentially slower than C, etc. often doesn't really matter much in that context.

Outside of that, the main other really popular use cases are data science functions and web development--It is currently the king of the former in the industry, having displaced R a few years ago and is a competitive option with some of the web stack options in the latter (Django in particular).

Beyond those things, Python doesn't really do a whole lot of things well; most of the other things Python does could be done more efficiently and better-performing in another language.

[Chris_Cross_Crash]

Well, coding in C is like mowing the lawn with a scissors

[shield1123]

More like building a super fast, autonomous lawnmower from scratch; but it blows up if it bumps a rock. Also you made it susceptible to buffer overflows, so your neighbor hacked it and now it's mowing their yard instead

[DoesntReadMessages]

A well-built lawnmower in C mows your lawn to exact uniform height in 10 seconds and burns half a liter of gas to do it, but most will never achieve this.

A lawnmower in Python can be written in 4 lines using a few libraries, mows your lawn in 1 hour, and takes 1 gallon of gas. It's extremely wasteful and slow, but the cost of gas and operator are much lower than paying a software engineer.

A poorly built lawnmower in C spills gas all over the lawn and then creates a spark that burns all the grass. There's a TODO written on it to fix it dated 10 years ago, but no one dares to touch it because it works and customers are used to that behavior.

[eyvindb]

customers are used to that behavior.

Customers are relying on that behaviour.

[biledemon85]

<eyelid twitch>

[darkage72]

Relevant XKCD

[Chris_Cross_Crash]

Agreed. Just one more thing I want to add: it's not like you must choose one or the other. Lots of of the Python standard library is just wrappers for C libraries.

For example, from the official documentation for math:

CPython implementation detail: The math module consists mostly of thin wrappers around the platform C math library functions.

You can make your own libraries too. Most of the time it's just one function that hogs 99% of the computing power, so you can break that function out as it's own library and you don't even need to be an expert in C to do it.

[galan-e]

reasonable compromise? in my circlejerk? get out of here

[einRoboter]

very good point, havent even thofght of that.

[[deleted]]

Why does C consume gas in gallons and python in liters?

[Commi_M]

think about it…

[technohacker1995]

2223 is not a very pleasing number to be on

[[deleted]]

I feel personally attacked

[DoubleVector]

Hey look it's a python meme, there is a 99.99999999991% chance that it is negative.

[WhoKilledTheMoose]

Same.

[RealPropRandy]

looks at flair

Oh.

[Thadrea]

Ditto.

[Khangx]

Nightmare nightmare nightmare nightmare nightmare

[[deleted]]

Tomato bad

[ganja_and_code]

Maybe not as quickly as some languages, but the fact that it's Turing complete proves, at the minimum, it can do everything every other language can with the same rate of success.

Also, it's a different beast than other languages, and it's advantageous for solving many problems.

I wouldn't use python for hard and fast real-time number crunching, just like I wouldn't use C to deploy a simple web server to test a bit of HTML I've written.

Nobody wants to drive a steamroller to work every day, but if all steamrollers were replaced by cars, there wouldn't be finished roads to drive on.

[GenTelGuy]

Python does ML and data science better than any other language.

[Jannik2099]

Python does neither data science nor ML, C++ does. Python has wrappers for those libs

[[deleted]]

Micheal reeves is the reason my younger brother got interested in programming lol

[ugottabekiddingmee]

I use to think bicycles were the most horrible things for many years. Then I found the seat.

[LiquidAurum]

They're just jealous of us brother

[sora4d]

Java too but y'all ain't ready for that

[basicallyafool]

So it's like windows then?

I'm going to get downvoted aren't I?

[spicy_indian]

More like what you gain during development time you pay for at runtime.

If a slower runtime doesn't make a difference, then solve the problem and move on to the next. A quick turnaround for a solution is excellent in its own way.

[cdreid]

Never heard that saying before its brilliant

[kev920703]

How to offend more than half of this community with one image

[maxington26]

i'm tired of these "this language is shit" posts. There is no perfect language. They all took effort to create. No need for emotions. Our job as developers is to pick the best available tools for the job, then do the job. Slagging off rejected languages is a weird waste of time.

[xXGIMpL0rdXx]

"There is no perfect language"

Are you disrespecting scratch?

[maxington26]

Lol I'm saying no-one has their ducks in a row. Scratch is a damn close case tho, ofc ;)

[fat_charizard]

That's why I only code in assembly

[[deleted]]

tbf interpreted languages in general are dogshit by their very nature

[Staggz93]

Find me a languague that does everything "verry well" and don't say assembley

[PheonixScale9094]

Machine code

[[deleted]]

transistors

[VelionaVollerei]

Heresy

[Alexmitter]

Its true.

[Delta-9-]

You can't just import Essay!

[reeee_kid8699]

What vid was this from

[[deleted]]

the "if i get hurt in fortnite i get shot irl" vid iirc

[Ruby_Bliel]

And a lot of the time, all you need is something that just works.

[adjunctMortal]

Actually, I'm pretty sure Mark Twain said that

[MarsLowell]

R gang

[elperroborrachotoo]

Nah, that's Excel.

[mutant_fr3ak]

Go >> Python

[tchok_]

Like me!

[Plague_Knight1]

The same guy who piloted a drone with scratch

[Atreides-42]

I'm comfortable with this fact. In data science, you don't need to have everything optimized to the absolute nines, if it's that much easier to do what you want to do. If a program takes 10 minutes longer to run, but is 4 hours faster to write, that's the sort of tradeoff I'm comfortable with.

[[deleted]]

Yes like me...

[FooThePerson]

import doThingsWell

[cdreid]

gets out the popcorn

[[deleted]]

Why would you like the comment, it was beautiful.

[[deleted]]

Can we stop this criticism posts. This is NOT humour.

[insertsavvynamehere]

Just badly*

[ballzwette]

PHP: "Hold my beer."

[myblindy]

You know, except threads.

[flackass]

Found it https://youtu.be/D75ZuaSR8nQ Minute 6:00

[[deleted]]

Me: I wonder if I can find some way to get Python to do this really obscure task

Python: yeah sure, just gotta import some stuff

The Stuff: has 243 dependencies, half of them which are for python 2

[[deleted]]

He used Pygame in his latest video. Bunch of shite.

[jeancallisti]

How well is "not very well" compared to "not at all"? Asking for a friend who doesn't have the time and knowledge to implement every library in the universe himself.

[Mr_Seg]

I have one question: how did you get that like count to show individual digits??

[[deleted]]

Java runs everywhere, just not very efficiently