Talk:Python (programming language)/Archive 8: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:49, 29 May 2012

Revision as of 02:43, 23 August 2012

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:Fair enough. Why change the quotes? I've updated the comment. [[User:Peterl|peterl]] ([[User talk:Peterl|talk]]) 02:45, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

== Drawbacks ==

I notice that, although C/C++, PERL and other languages have significant mention of drawbacks, there is no negative commentary about python. In fact the page reads like an "evangelists guide" to python. Personally I find python's whitespace-dependence to be horrible, and there are probably tens of thousands of others who take issue with the "lisp-like" convolution of operators... such as ... " ".join(list). Probably this comment will be removed.<span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/66.194.114.178|66.194.114.178]] ([[User talk:66.194.114.178|talk]]) 16:11, 18 May 2011 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

:No language is perfect. The [[Perl]] article has very little criticism, although [[Talk:Perl#Criticism_.26_Bias|it should have]]. I must disagree about whitespace; some people hate it, but as a professional language trainer the improvement in beginners' code is demonstrable. Yes, Python is not without its warts. Constructive, referenced edits are always welcome. [[User:Peterl|peterl]] ([[User talk:Peterl|talk]]) 01:01, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

::I agree this article needs more criticism, especially because most flaws in Python are technical, not philosophical, when compared to Perl and therefor are much better suited for a neutral Wikipedia. Also Perl has some kind of workaround for all of the criticism (Moose for OO to give an example), something that Python has in many cases, but not in all of them. However I'd, like in all programming related articles add criticism in form of fact mentioned in various sections of the articles. This would make it harder to include opinions. Also I wouldn't include quotes, because they are NEVER neutral. --[[User:Athaba|Athaba]] ([[User talk:Athaba|talk]]) 13:50, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

::Consider a programmer picking a language that they would like to learn, it is wise to weigh the pros and cons of the language so as to determine where the language fits best. This article cannot help with that sort of endeavor without delving in to some of the negative aspects of the language (the preachers of the church of Python need not comment). If I knew more python I would help, perhaps someone who has used python in more production projects would like to take a shot? [[Special:Contributions/108.2.124.115|108.2.124.115]] ([[User talk:108.2.124.115|talk]]) 03:57, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

:I ''don't'' think that a criticism section can be sufficiently 'policed'. --[[User:Paddy3118|Paddy]] ([[User talk:Paddy3118|talk]]) 09:39, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

It would be accurate to say that many newcomers to Python who have experience with curly-brace languages find "the whitespace thing" to be confusing. However, people with experience in multiple languages from different language families generally look beyond the "surface syntax" of any language and address more substantial issues — such as formal properties of the language (e.g. type system, exception system) or its implementations (compilation, efficiency, etc.)

There has been ''substantial'' criticism of Python in these regards. For instance: The extreme dynamism of Python makes it difficult to prove any formal properties of a Python program. The absence of static typing of any sort (declared or inferred) makes certain errors impossible to catch at compile-time, which could be caught in statically-typed languages. As a bytecode interpreter, the mainstream CPython implementation is slower than native-code compiled programming systems. Thanks to the Global Interpreter Lock, native Python code cannot scale to multiple processors without extensive reworking.

Yet at the same time, it is worth noting that many professors and teachers, who have professional experience with many programming languages, choose Python as a language for teaching new students. For instance, Python is one of a very few languages commonly used for teaching at the undergraduate level in top-ranked engineering universities such as MIT and CMU. This strongly suggests that Python is ''not'' wholly unsuitable as a language; and further that neither "the whitespace thing" nor any other feature make Python unnecessarily difficult for newcomers.

Professional software engineers and computer scientists are expected, as part of a successful educational and career path, to learn ''many'' programming languages, and to choose the appropriate ones for particular purposes. As such, professionals do not expect any one language to be ideal for ''all'' purposes, and are often ''very'' interested in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the various languages available to them. I use Python every week, and would strongly suggest that critiques written by newcomers to Python are probably less well-informed, and less [[WP:RS|reliable as sources]], than critiques written by people with extensive experience both with Python and other languages from multiple language families. —[[User:Fubar Obfusco|FOo]] ([[User talk:Fubar Obfusco|talk]]) 23:35, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

:Nicely said. As a professional language trainer, you have summarised these points well. Do note that GIL is only a part of CPython, and not other implementations, such as Parallel Python, IronPython, Jython, Stackless etc. [[User:Peterl|peterl]] ([[User talk:Peterl|talk]]) 07:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

== Typing in the sidebar ==

Why does the sidebar say that it's a strong typed language? Duck and dynamic are right, but it's not strong. I'm going to remove this.

<font color="#008888">[[User:Asmeurer|asmeurer]] ([[User talk:Asmeurer|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Asmeurer|contribs]])</font> 22:18, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

:Because it is? (see amongst [http://wiki.python.org/moin/Why%20is%20Python%20a%20dynamic%20language%20and%20also%20a%20strongly%20typed%20language this] for instance).--[[User:KimDabelsteinPetersen|Kim D. Petersen]] ([[User talk:KimDabelsteinPetersen|talk]]) 00:54, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

:I think you are confusing strong and static. See our articles on them. --[[User:Cybercobra|<b><font color="3773A5">Cyber</font></b><font color="FFB521">cobra</font>]] [[User talk:Cybercobra|(talk)]] 03:44, 7 July 2011 (UTC)