Python Makes Me Nervous

Not a very well researched article, mostly a rant.

First the article complains about not being able to figure out how to use a method from its signature. This ignores Python's style, which is to actually document things (and documenting is easy using docstrings). It isn't the language's fault if someone writes a function and doesn't tell you how to use it. Yes, a function accepting "kwargs" with no docstring is unnecessarily difficult. But anyone respecting Python's style would have a docstring that describes all possible keywords. I fail to see how a documented Python function could be hard to use.

And it's clear from the article that the author doesn't know how to find documentation. There's an example for open() which cites the 2-line help documentation and complains about everything it doesn't say. There are in fact several paragraphs on open() in the actual documentation (e.g. "http://www.python.org/doc/2.5.2/lib/built-in-funcs.html"), including information on exceptions raised, something the author thought was missing. Again, an ignorant programmer is not a fault of the language.

Summary: Author doesn't like these things about python:

- Duck Typing

- No constructor overloading

- Exceptions in Python aren't explicit ("checked")

Eh. You can't approach Python with a Java mindset and expect to be happy, just as you can't approach Java with a Python mindset likewise.

Sounds like you aren't complaining about Python, you're complaining about coworkers who don't document their functions. Sure, Java forces you to at least declare the type of each argument, but that's a pretty lame reason to insist on static typing.