Python 3: A Response to the Doubters | Hacker News Reader

Python 3: A Response to the Doubters

frompythonimportpodcast.com

20 pointsode6 comments

Note that this dates from the end of March. So it's not ancient history, but nor is it a response to recent discussions in this area.

Awesome podcast!!

There's still a major lack of communication happening.

Just a reminder that some languages and implementations never make it to their next big version. Perl 6 never broke. hhvm has not made everyone forget about PHP 5. Sometimes a language peaks when you are still in the mediocre (or horrible) implementation days. Unfortunately it is probably safer to bet against Python 3 and Python in general in the long run. If anyone has misgivings you should switch to a different language entirely.

I would suggest the follow in order of interest to you and your pay grade:

Haskell: Runtime is great and fast. Great syntax (but alien to most). Many hard problems have been solved with fantastic libraries.

JavaScript: V8 and Node.js make a great runtime implementation. Sweet.js will let you fix all the warts of the language.

Lua: Fast runtime in either of the major implementations (Lua 5 or LuaJIT). Python is never going to beat it. Python is said to have nice syntax, but if you like to use ternary operators in Python or multi-expression lambdas (impossible) your Python code will be ugly anyway. So, if you care about syntax use Haskell or Sweet.js. If you are using Python you are actually in syntax hell and Lua will be a relief.

> Unfortunately it is probably safer to bet against Python 3

Why is that?

About 7 years ago I wrote my first line of Python and I loved it. Before that I had some experience with C and PHP and the clarity of code and the great documentation was mind blowing.

The slogan 'batteries included' was actually true. You could do so much stuff out of the box and I learned to love the language. The community back then was pretty small (at least the German-speaking one) and they welcomed new people.

In the last months it doesn't feel right anymore. The hate in the community discourages me. It doesn't feel like the Python I learned to love anymore.

And I'm sad about that development.

About 3 months ago I looked around for an other language. I wasn't up-to-date on the language development since Haskell became more popular (around 2008?) and quite a bit happened since then.

So I looked around, looked at some code, some new languages, read a few blog posts on each and finally settled on learning Clojure. I loved Lisps (more specifically Scheme) but the environment was – imho – a bit problematic.

I adopted a lot from functional languages into my Python coding over the years so the transition wasn't that hard. And I really love the language so far. The community seems to be quite active and is welcoming. :)

That didn't happen with Python 3. It's here, it works, the important libraries work. Sure, some projects are held back by their dependencies, some people have curmudgeonly objections, and quite a few people just lean on half-remembered objections from something they heard or read a couple of years ago. It's time to update the advice, stop prolonging the debate, and just tell people to use the current version of Python.

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