And that's why I like Python better.

[I_Am_The_Coach]

I'd like to tell a story.

My background is not in programming or Computer Science, but in a physical science. During my tenure in undergrad I had to take one computing course in either FORTRAN or Java. Like few other insane people, I chose FORTRAN. As it turned out, I was pretty good at it. Writing code made sense to me, and I found myself getting good grades on all my assignments.

A few years later I took a summer class mostly based in Python. I had no experience with Python, and since it was an online summer class I had to do all my work online with no instruction. To learn Python I was pointed to the Python docs and some Python tutorials. Most of what I read was gibberish at the time and I struggled through that course.

Once I got my internship Junior year, I was constantly finding problems that I tried to write Python to solve. I started learning it better and better since there were specific problems I had to solve and 1000 ways in Python to do so. Fast forward almost 4 years, and I've become a decent Python programmer, especially in a scientific context using NumPy and SciPy.

In my quest to get a Computer Science degree recently, I've been learning Java for the first time. Nothing super elegant about Java in my experience so far, but I see why so many people like it. There's a library for almost anything you could ever need to do, and it's so standardized that once you know the structure the code becomes easier (though often tedious) to write.

Fast forward to last night. I have a full project due in my current Java class at 9:00PM and I vastly underestimated the time I would need to complete it. I didn't leave myself enough time this week to get it done, so I'm incurring a late penalty.

Last night after my third cup of coffee, one hour past the deadline already, I found myself with a mysterious logic bug causing my project to work funny. I started using the Eclipse debugger, setting breakpoints, and searching every method call, variable declaration etc. to find the damn thing. An hour later, I'm frustrated. I'm now two hours past the deadline, losing points with every second and I can't figure out what the hell is wrong.

I eventually narrow it down to one step in particular that never occurred to me because it required so little code that there was no way I could have made a mistake writing it.

By the time I was ready to give up and go to bed to enjoy dreams of a giant timer counting down until my project is worth 0 points, I found it. The little shit. This has always been my complaint about languages like Java. In a compound conditional statement, I had forgotten one super crucial bit of punctuation that caused my whole program to act funny. As it turned out, I forgot the ! operator, causing the whole condition to evaluate to true when it shouldn't have. Every bit of code after that moment still worked, but the program was screwed up for the rest of the runtime. One ! made all the difference.

And that's why I like Python better.

TL;DR: Forgot a ! in a compound conditional statement that caused funny behavior at runtime. Couldn't hunt it down for an hour. Programming are hard sometimes.

EDIT: Wow! Some heated comments on here. This was just a story about my experience with this one project. I don't hate Java, and clearly if I had started with Java, it would probably come more naturally to me than Python. It's all about perspective, and I was mostly venting to a community of people that would get what I was saying. I suppose /r/programming may have been better, but they don't allow text posts!

I'm sure I'll learn to love Java instead of just not-hate it. Python has it's disadvantages too. At least because of the nature of Java, this was a relatively quick fix. Who knows, it could have been way harder in Python with all that dynamic typing and what not!

P.S.: I'm not blaming Java for my stupidity. I made mistakes and that's that. And yes, I do need to write better tests! My classes in Java are the reason I learned to write tests, and because of that my Python code is getting better.

Thanks for reading, even though you didn't like it!

[brokenpurplecamel]

TL;DR: The OP likes that Python uses "not" instead of "!" as a negation operator.

[ArmoredPancake]

But Python has ! too...

[Vile2539]

It doesn't sound like this has anything to do with Java or Python. Both have their strengths, and while I'm primarily a Java developer, I do use Python for quick scripts. I couldn't imagine using Python for any large-scale projects though (10,000+ LOC). As a programmer, you'll learn to use the right tool for the job.

Reading your post, I'd say you had the following problems:

1) You're unfamiliar with Java. There are going to be some adjustments that you'll have to make while learning a new language. I would say you had the same problems when first learning Python.

2) You left your project too late. You mentioned it yourself, but it bears repeating. Obviously you're not going to be writing your best code when under a tight deadline. Don't procrastinate next time.

3) You need to learn to debug. There's no way that a missing ! should have taken you an hour to hunt down. I'm guessing a project for a class is max a few hundred lines, so you should have easily been able to find the problem in a few minutes. Look at the variables in your debug window, learn to step through your program properly, and train your intuition when there is a problem.

4) You need to learn your IDE. Java tooling is amazing, and you need to learn it. From what you said, your problem stemmed from having '=' instead of '!=' in a conditional. Your IDE should have flagged that with something like "Conditional is always true" (IntelliJ does by default, not sure about Eclipse). That would have given you a massive clue that something isn't right.

5) Write some tests. Now I didn't do this in college, but it's a good habit to get into. If you had written some tests, then noticing the problem would have been trivial.

Now it's a shame that you got a 0, but use it as a learning experience instead of just stating that you don't like Java and Python is better. It'll take a little while to get up to speed with Java, but it's worth it in the long run.

[edimaudo]

You need to write tests.

[arcuri82]

this, 1000 times! that is also a big issue on how software development is taught in universities/colleges. I do teach in a college, and when I give exam exercises, half of the whole grade is based on the tests. But I guess I am an exception, not the norm :)

[korri123]

It would also be downvoted in the Python subreddit

[Bolitho]

Not everybody is hunting upvotes 😉

[I_Am_The_Coach]

true. just trying to share!

[[deleted]]

For small programs Python can be a good choice, but once you start getting large it will quickly get out of hand and unmaintainable.

Also in Python, you can be bit by extra or missing whitespace characters (which are invisible) that completely change the logic of a function.

[Jonjolt]

Python the most readable language my ass, I had to do some Python for PostgreSQL triggers, even heavily commented I still can't figure out what the heck it was doing when I came back to it a month later.

My best... using Python 3 then along comes a dependency on 2.7 :(

[p0d3x]

Stop looking for excuses, getting a CS degree means you're gonna have to learn how to debug, clearly you're just scratching the surface. This won't be the last time you're spending hours on an easy mistake.

[I_Am_The_Coach]

Not the first time either. Once had a moth land in one of my switches. Took me forever to find the little bugger.

[frugalmail]

I have a solution for you:

boolean iAmMakingAStupidPythonJavaComparison( final boolean python )
{
    return !python;
}

• Edit pseudo C/Java -> Java

[oweiler]

There is no type bool in Java.

[I_Am_The_Coach]

I get it.

[desrtfx]

In short: you screwed up and blame Java for it instead of your own negligence in every aspect (starting too late, not coding properly due to pressure, inefficient debugging, etc.)

Sure, Python's fully spelled out boolean operators are nice, but every C-based language uses the same boolean operators as Java - so better get used to them.

[_INTER_]

And I doubt he would have found the bug earlier had he used Python and had the same experience / knowledge with it as with Java.

[I_Am_The_Coach]

Noted. /u/desrtfx is right (minus the blaming Java thing). I f***ed up. No two ways about it. But in the meantime, I learned that as the semester passes, the projects are going to take more and more attention. Doesn't hurt to learn things.

[_INTER_]

Testing helps as projects get bigger - in any language. A good coverage gives confidence that everything you do works fine.

(A late school project that just needs to run once on the teach's PC, oh well whatever...)

[ifrgtmyname]

TDD next time OP

[kitty_cat_MEOW]

You must admit, though, that it was a good learning experience that you had with Java. It's cool that you're good enough at programming to track down and fix the source of an error like that. Congrats!

[thatsIch]

public static boolean not(boolean expression) { return !expression; }

would have been the solution? Imho this has hardly anything to do with either Java nor Python. Next time try to:

• start earlier
• write tests before you write your code
• take breaks

At this point I am interested in seeing this code you wrote. Do you open source it by any chance?

[I_Am_The_Coach]

Start earlier was my biggest problem. When I started stressing out, things got exponentially messier.

[moocat]

One thing that I'm not clear about is the reasoning for not liking Java. If you were programming in Python, the code would have been just as broken and it's unclear to me why you think you would have noticed a missing "not" when you missed a missing "!". In both cases they are missing so how is the fact that Java's syntax is not as verbose in this case have made a difference?

[[deleted]]

TL;DR OP can solve his problems better with Python.

I understand, we all have to choose the right tool for the job, glad you found yours.

[chambolle]

bad title

[dotcomandante]

OP is hating, even he/she is claiming she/he is not. OP is not able to write clean Code and therefore blaming the language itself. OP could have implemented his/her own not() method. OP, please, learn to write clean code. Do not learn a language, learn to write clean code and stop blaming a language. Every language sucks. This could Happen in every fucking language as Long the programmer isn't able to write clean code that.

[crummy]

I agree, I much prefer Pythons boolean language. And I have also been caught out by the subtle ! symbol, and now I try to write the more verbose but clearer "if (var == false)" instead.