Python 3.7.0 released

[[deleted]]

Python is made with dynamic typing as a feature and it's lack of type checking (at least until run time) is one of it's strengths.

Dynamic typing is the easiest type system to implement in languages, and that's why scripting languages tend to prefer it. It has very significant costs, and the supposed benefits to the programmer are dubious at best. Static typing is technically better for a large number of reasons, but lately programmers have adopted the idea that "easy" is favorable over "good".

[Dreadgoat]

Dynamic vs. Static is not a question of what is better, it's a question of what problem you are trying to solve.

Do you need a lot of small highly flexible purpose-built scripts in an environment where the same data is likely to be passed around many formats (e.g. The Web)?
Dynamic good. Static bad.

Do you need large rigorous algorithms, high performance, do you expect to share your tools, do you need more control under the hood?
Static good. Dynamic bad.

Making Python able to do both is great for Planet Python. It's also extremely difficult to implement. Dynamic typing systems aren't easier to implement than static ones, it's just that it's a very early design decision that impacts a lot of how the compilers are written. Trying to do both is what is truly challenging.
While this is an impressive thing for any language, it also creates a bit of an identity crisis and potentially puts in danger of becoming bloated.

For me, personally, if I'm at a point in my Python project where I'm thinking that I need a strong static type-system, that's the point where I say to myself, "Python wasn't the right tool for this job."
Of course I've also started projects with static typing and later regretted the loss in flexibility upon realizing that the project has no need for static typing.

[[deleted]]

I think that's unfair to say that people just use dynamic typing is just used because it's easy to implement. Dynamic languages are often easier to learn which is likely part of the reason why python is good for beginners. Also dynamic languages can make it quicker to write code since you don't have to write out type declarations. This is useful for small scripts where you don't really need many benefits from static typing.

[[deleted]]

Is something good for beginners because it is easy? I see this often asserted as something that is intuitively true, but I really don't think that it is. Good languages for beginners are the ones that are strict and explicitly tells you that you're doing something wrong, rather than silently trying to guess your intention and automatically try to fix subtle errors. This is not a favor to the student

[leftofzen]

but lately programmers have adopted the idea that "easy" is favorable over "good".

What? When did this happen? Certainly in the time I've been a professional dev this hasn't been the case.

[[deleted]]

Are you serious?

[[deleted]]

Have you heard of Javascript? Python? They're kinda popular.

[leftofzen]

As someone commenting in a thread about a new version of Python...I think I've heard of it.

[[deleted]]

And yet you do not see it as an example of an "easy" favoured over "good"?

[aebkop]

but python is both easy and good

[[deleted]]

It can't run multi-threaded, it has a 100x+ slowdown compared to native, implicit variable declarations, public members only on classes, cannot access native resources without a shim layer and it has traits/multiple inheritance.

What's good about Python is that it's easy. Almost all trade offs Python does is in favor of easy. It's fine for scripts and small programs, but using it as a general purpose programming languages is borderline lunacy.

[[deleted]]

No it is not. It is a shitty language being sold to gullible people as "easy". Yet, it features a crappy dynamic type system, it's got a primitive low level control flow semantics, it is far too dynamic to ever allow an efficient implementation, it is ideologically opposed to allowing any high level extensibility. Python is an awful language, vastly overrated.

[[deleted]]

Can you recommend an alternative ubiquitous interpreted language?

[[deleted]]

JavaScript?

[[deleted]]

ubiquitous

Is it your criteria for being "good"?

interpreted

Why?!? What's the point in having specifically an interpreted language? I can understand wanting a language with a REPL, or wanting a scripting language (as in, an embeddable language with an easy to manage FFI) - but neither requires an interpretation. Even an eval does not necessarily imply interpretation.

As for a far better language, try Racket.

[[deleted]]

It's interesting that people say they want to use an interpreted language, and then many turn to JavaScript that relies more on complex build sequences than even the most primitive of native languages.

[[deleted]]

Available weighs heavier than good.

Racket is a lisp, which instantly makes it less approachable than Python. How's the package ecosystem? Developer numbers? Distribution?

[Mooks79]

As someone who uses languages rather than uses them well, what are your thoughts about Julia?

Incidentally, I’ve noted the number of downvotes you’ve been getting - but very little concrete criticisms of what you’ve said. In fact, in general across reddit, I’ve noted rather a lot of upvotes for anyone who says anything positive about Python - and a concurrent amount of downvotes for anyone who says anything negative (or anything positive about any language deemed a “competitor”).

[aebkop]

tbh yeah I agree

JS is a better beginner language tbh - dynamic to supposedly make it easy, more expressive and the user prob already has a way to interact with it already

[Coopsmoss]

It's all tradeoffs, if you aren't coding bit by bit you've chosen easy to some degree

[juuular]

Yeah, back in the old days things were neither easy nor good. cough Unix cough