Comment by pansa2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pansa2 | Hacker News Reader

> asyncio has so many sharp corners and design issues [...] bordering on being fundamentally broken

> other languages and libraries did what asyncio does significantly better

> it is baffling how the library made it out of provisional status with such glaring flaws

Unfortunately this seems common in Python 3.x. The hype-cycle focuses on a feature from another language(s), and Python rushes to add its own version without sufficient attention to its design, nor how the feature complements the rest of the language (if at all).

Async, type hints and pattern matching all fit this description. `match` is probably the worst offender - it seems to have been added mainly so that novices choosing a language will not veto Python because it's missing the current feature-du-jour. [0]

Type hints are at least having their flaws addressed - but the flaws can't be removed due to back-compat. This leads to a C++-like situation of "this is the modern way, these other approaches are deprecated". So much for "one way to do it".

[0] https://discuss.python.org/t/pep-8012-frequently-asked-quest...

I feel like this started/greatly accelerated when Guido stepped down as BDFL. Python at is on a path where the essence of what made it popular (readable, well designed, productive) is being crushed under the weight of it’s popularity. The language now feels bloated and needlessly complex in areas that were previously limited, but simple.

I recently chased down a bug where something was accidentally made a class variable because a type hint was left off it by accident and it clicked for me that Python is not the same language I loved at the start of my career.

> I feel like this started/greatly accelerated when Guido stepped down as BDFL

Same, but I don't think that's the direct cause. Guido was actually in favor of all these features (as well as Walrus, of course) - so it's not like he would have vetoed them if he were still BDFL.

> I recently chased down a bug where something was accidentally made a class variable because a type hint was left off it by accident

That's the reverse situation to one I've come across - a novice accidentally wrote `a : 4` instead of `a = 4` and was surprised that `a` was still undefined. There was no error because the `4` was interpreted as a type hint.

The problem with any project is that at some point it's essentially complete, and all we need is small maintenance to keep it going. Google used to have an algorithm that pretty much solved web search. Tinder solved dating. Spotify solved music delivery. The problem is, you're sitting with a hundred managers and a thousand engineers and all these people expect growth. So you have to keep going, even if the only direction is down, because if you don't, you'll be forced out of organization and replaced by someone who does. So you do go down. And then everyone's surprised and playing the blame game.

It's funny because a lot of OSS suffers from neglect.

But Python and a few other popular OSS (TypeScript is another example) have the opposite problem: too much development time is spent on them, too many features are added, and the language bloats and becomes less nice to use

I don't feel calling modern Match/Case syntax a "du-jour" feature is plausible. Are you referencing something else?

> I don't feel calling modern Match/Case syntax a "du-jour" feature is plausible

I do. To be clear: I'm not saying that (well-designed versions of) pattern-matching will become less useful over time, but that they will become less fashionable.

Python will then, no doubt, add another language construct to appeal to those who choose languages solely based on a checklist of features.

I liked Python’s pattern matching until I picked up Rust. Oh… that’s what we could have had? Sigh.

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