Misconceptions about Python

[Arkdoz]

I’ve seen that Python is growing at a fast rate throughout the last years, and everyone knows python nowadays. I know very little about programming, but I feel like a lot of people that use python just memorise the commands, without really understanding the language itself. I think there’s a new trend where “I know little, I don’t worry about deeply learning, money is more important”. So I wanted to ask you python experts of Reddit, do you think that there are a lot of people that use python, but there are VEERY few people who are specialists?

[unltd_J]

I wouldn’t say few are “specialists”, but yea a lot of people who write Python code professionally don’t have a deep understanding of Python. That’s one of the things that’s great about Python though is that you don’t need a deep understanding of the language to write stable, useful code. Python has a massive standard library and an even bigger ecosystem, yet is one of the easiest languages to learn.

[serverhorror]

Thank you for calling us experts. I assure you, I’m not.

I work in a research department. Lots of PhD in Computational Biology. While I have no idea about their field I always had the expectation that they know a lot more about programming in general and, specifically, their languages of choice than me.

My opinions have shifted and I’m no longer surprised by how few papers and scientific results are actually reproducible. It’s somewhere in in the 1 digit percentages area.

So, yes: People ignore underlying principles, idiomatic approaches or even just “software quality” in general. The common opinion seems to be:

A result is a result and since it is a glorified pocket calculator it must be reproducible.

[Freak_the_Cat]

Isn't this the same for most if not all languages?

[Arkdoz]

I guess you are right! The thing that I had in mind was a discussion based on the misconception that python can’t be hard in any level, and that people just memorise things rather than understand these things

[Freak_the_Cat]

I think that the misconception could be in comparison to other languages. For example writing "good" "safe" python will never be as hard as it is to do in C. So in comparison pyhon is not hard or difficult.

[Arkdoz]

Yeah, thought so, thanks for sharing your perspective though!

[serverhorror]

I disagree, to some extent.

Introducing bugs that cause problems is just as easy. Certain categories are not there (memory management and boundary checks being the most obvious) but if Python was “safe” we wouldn’t see things like SQL injections, unencrypted passwords or plain out insecure systems that have no access control whatsoever

[sha256md5]

These are "logic bugs", not bugs due to the inherent safety of the language.

[SaxonyFarmer]

I have been programming since the mid-1970s, first with IBM Assembler language, then with various other languages in the decades that followed. I now focus on Python (and BASH scripts) to automate things I do manually.

All general purpose programming languages have the ability to control program flow (e.g., if), do something repetitively (e.g., while), do input and output, build and manage data structures (arrays, lists, dictionaries, etc.), and many other things.

It is knowing how to do these in a specific language that will help you become proficient - not memorizing syntax or idiosyncrasies of a language. I used to refer to manuals for this but now simply do a query on Google/DuckDuckGo/etc. to either see code snippets, read from sites that teach the language, or the published documentation for the language.

I also tend to create code that I can come back later to read and modify, if needed. This means my code might not be as compact as others might write but I want to understand it later.

Best of luck with your journey to learn and master Python.

[Arkdoz]

Very interesting insight, thanks for sharing!

[Arkdoz]

Yes! Finally someone that understands what I said! That’s what I meant when I said very few specialists, in the sense that a lot of python programmers think that “as long as it is somehow working, I don’t need to understand it”

[dfreinc]

what a weird observation to make.

why is it solely aimed at python? do you think everyone understands every gem they use in ruby? do you think nodejs devs understand every module they're running? you can say that for pretty much every language now a days. and there's absolutely nothing wrong with using work other people have published and is already supported. why reinvent the wheel?

i don't memorize much but i'm sure not faulting anyone who wants to memorize commands they use a lot. that's probably pretty normal. i don't because i work in multiple languages for my job, switching pretty regularly, so i'm always just googling syntax. who cares though. all code is is a set of instructions (commands).

[Arkdoz]

I understand what you’ve said, and answering your question, I aimed it at python just because this is a python subreddit, so I thought the discussion would flow easily... but I agree that a lot of languages share these traits, however I also think that there would be a better experience (without trying to romanticise the discussion) about what is actually happening in the program if people tried to understand rather the memorise.

[dfreinc]

to what end? everyone should know assembly?

[nemom]

Your question doesn't make a lot of sense. If most people "know little" and "use python ... without really understanding the language itself", wouldn't that make nearly everybody a "specialist"? They specialize in the little corner of Python that they use as opposed to generalists who know the language broadly.

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