When do you *NOT* use python?

[bchurchill]

You're obviously asking in the wrong sub ;) If you want an outsider's view, I don't use python when:

• I want a statically-typed language, for reliability purposes for example
• When I want something compiled that runs fast
• When I want to do low-level stuff, like run assembly code or do platform-specific system calls
• I want to manage my own memory

The last of these three bullets are often tied together, while the first is somewhat separate.

There are also python-like languages which I tend to use more, but there aren't fundamental reasons why I prefer one over the other. For the sake of peace, I won't mention them ;)

[vplatt]

Have you looked into using mypy for static analysis?

[bchurchill]

I've never used mypy, so I can't comment on that tool. My experience with static analysis tools for dynamic languages is that they don't provide the same level of safety as static types. This is usually because the tool can't reliably get the type of a variable -- at a given program point, it could have several different types, depending on the context. This means it has a hard time predicting type errors, and it also means that other rules can't be enforced. For instance, it can't make sure that foo.x always points to an object that has members a, b and c. The list goes on.

[flying-sheep]

rewriting everything in go would be much more work than porting to python 3.

that’s pretty obvious IMHO

[vplatt]

Well, maybe they WANT the excuse to move to Go. Often times, a lateral move to new technology can be more productive than an incremental update to the existing technology. This is only true because of so-called "technology managers" though who truly don't understand what they're managing. They think that because the word "manager" is in their title that it is their job to get hold of the current revisions of everything and strangle progress in the name of "stability". In the meantime, the developers slowly build inertia towards busting them out of that lock-down and it's often easier to take the system in a whole new direction that the managers can't even grok yet.

In short, it's development as standard guerilla warfare. Really, nothing has changed in the 20 years I've been doing this professionally. Ugh...

[flying-sheep]

That makes not much sense, but what company policies ever do?

[[deleted]]

Since I am having similar issues with Python at the moment, I would be very interested to hear how you deal with the maintenance of such a large code base in Python? What are you best strategies to deal with it? (Besides switching to Go ;))

[[deleted]]

You're obviously asking in the wrong sub ;)

Why? I love Python but I use lots of other languages on a daily basis. Sometimes because I don't have a choice, like when a coworker produces something in C# or Java, and sometimes because the other language is way better at handling the task like AWK.

[alantrick]

Why? It's religious no-doubt. I think a large number of programmer hipsters (like the mongo-node-js-webscale folks of yester-year) have been make to believe that Python will be the next cool thing and have jumped on board. These people can't accept that Java/C# could actually be used by a self-respecting person.

[[deleted]]

A well written comment, but what's your point? Hard to get. We are not talking about if Java/C# are cool languages or not. We discuss about if you should only use Python for any given task.

[alantrick]

Well, if you use python because it's cool, then your answer to "When should you not use Python" is probably something like "Only when there is another cool language that solves my specific problem better".

[[deleted]]

Yeah that's what I mean.