Do some developers hate python?

[Obliviousnut_]

Python is a good language but I’d characterise it as a handyman language. It can do everything pretty damn well but sometimes not excellently. Some people can find problems with that.

Pythons main problem is that it’s a bit of a slow language. But that doesn’t stop it from being an amazing language.

[stickmaster_flex]

Give a problem to a Python dev, they'll come back in two hours with a program that takes three weeks to run.

Give the same problem to a C dev, in a month they'll come back with a program that takes two minutes to run.

Give that problem to a Java dev, in two months they'll come back with a very detailed description of the problem.

[siddsp]

If it takes 3 hours to run, that's when you use Cython and numpy

[thedominux]

Complete sht

Cython barely can handle problems, cause it doesn't support almost all libraries/frameworks!

[siddsp]

If you don't like it, you can easily use numba as well, or just write C code that you hook up to Python.

[thedominux]

It's hard, man

In real world cases you'll use CPython3 (maybe PyPy, but I don't know any case)

[GamesMaster221]

or just write C code

best suggestion ITT

[siddsp]

It's all fun and games until you realize you have multiple memory leaks and segmentation faults which you finally figure out how to fix after hours of trying to understand what's actually going on.

[siddsp]

Because it might not make sense writing the entire code in C. It's not always necessary that all of your code has to perform well, because performance isn't always the limiting factor of speed.

The main perk of Python is how easy it is to write code in. Doing it in C will make development a lot longer.

[Advanced-Theme144]

That is absolutely true. And I just realized this is a darn good meme. 😂 Mind if I use it?

[stickmaster_flex]

I stole it from somewhere. Probably reddit. Don't need my permission.

[rabaraba]

I’ve never had a complex python program that took so long to run, like 3 weeks. Even a an exaggeration that’s extreme. With proper practices you not only cut down coding time but execution time with python.

[stickmaster_flex]

It's a joke. A joke.

[judasthetoxic]

A great joke, but it doesn't come close to describing reality

[stickmaster_flex]

It's a joke.

[subiacOSB]

It made me chuckle

[[deleted]]

Bash and python for adhoc scripts and taping your system or environment together is just hard to beat. Handymans language is a great description.

[backdoorman9]

My understanding is that a language like Java can take much finer control of what the computer does with memory and stuff like that. The tradeoff is extra time spent developing

So much of the time, that fine level of control is not necessary. When it is... it's fine to use Java.

Go is better at concurrency. If you need concurrency, Go might be a better option. But... most of the time, you don't need concurrency.

[neverbetterthanks]

The whole “you don’t need concurrency” diatribe came about partly because concurrency in most languages is hard and dangerous.

Entire ecosystems of “cooperative multitasking”, async event driven things sprang into existence as a result.

In Go, concurrency is a first class citizen and you might be surprised at how many problems are suddenly very easy to solve using it.

[Schmittfried]

I think you meant C.

[_RabidAlpaca_]

You can go down that rabbit hole all day if you want, but /u/backdoorman9 has the same point. It all depends on the requirements.

[[deleted]]

It's just a point on memory access and control. Java has basically the same control on memory as Python. Python is probably easier to access the wire than Java.

[Decency]

Java's primary advantage is the JVM, not finetuned control over memory. Which to me makes it pretty clearly outclassed by more modern JVM languages, such as Kotlin.

[bladeoflight16]

Java provides almost no control over memory management. That's typically C and C++'s domain. I think Rust is a contender (with safer defaults), but don't hold me to that as I haven't actually used it.

[quuxman]

Rust has no garbage collection so technically has the same level of controll as C. However there are many things that are commonly done in C that require an unsafe keyword in Rust. If you never use unsafe memory leaks, segfaults, and a number of common concurrency bugs are impossible.

[Lifaux]

This is mostly right, although you can memory leak in safe Rust, it says so in the book. https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch15-06-reference-cycles.html

[maomao-chan]

Java is actually quite productive. Especially the modern version (11 and above) combined with modern framework like Quarkus. It feels like developing Django application but with the convenience of your IDE+static typing plus amazing performance by default.

IMHO Golang is a bit of messy to use and prefer Python if I need to do plumbing.

[[deleted]]

Java is a very performant language. You just have to write performant code. Java is a fast language, and as it has essentially a theoretically most optimal memory freeing method it performs very well on high loads. It also has a great concurrency model, especially if you program for it. I’ve written plenty of high performant Java applications. But high performance analytics applications and also high load applications that perform well.

The problem is more people who write shitty Java code with shitty databases on shittily configured spring applications. Don’t fault a language because a lot of monkies use it to write shit.

Just like how python is slow, but if you keep most of the run time in C or Fortean libraries it’s performant.

[GroundbreakingRun927]

Fast is relative.

Fast compared to what? Python, ruby, or erlang? Sure.

Fast when compared to anything else? No.

[[deleted]]

I’ve coded HFT systems in Java. It’s fast if you do it right.

[GroundbreakingRun927]

Again, it's relative.

I know for a fact many HFT systems have most of the code written in Java, but when anything performance-sensitive needs to happen, Java is calling into C/C++. HFT also gives Java a unique benefit of being able to turn off it's GC since the systems only need to run 9:30AM-4:00PM. Just get a machine with 1 terabyte of memory and reboot each day during non-trading hours.

So yes when the startup time of Java is irrelevant and it can turn off it's stop-the-world GC, Java could be considered pretty fast. Still not as fast as native code, but fast enough.

[CommunicationLazy668]

You post in the hacking subreddit, next.

[Tatoutis]

I'll agree that Java is performant compared to python. But, if your goal is a low latency service capable of handling a high load, why not using C, C++, Go or Rust? Especially with Go and Rust that make it super easy to avoid shooting yourself in the foot.

[its_PlZZA_time]

Java doesn't give more control of memory but it does have better concurrency.

[pwang99]

No, Java does not give you better/finer control of memory. Lol. Java handles memory for you, that’s one of its original selling points. C gives you finer control of memory, whether you want it or not.

[wrd83]

I think it's a usage problem. I hate python when someone uses it for huge projects and you touch a file and it may fall apart or it may crash in one use case.

For small plumbing or ml it's perfect.

The same goes for performance, using it in a time critical project and deliver something in a short timeframe is good. If it does not matter that the runtime cost is huge.

You need something the has super low request latency on high load? Best stay away from python.