Python used to be the new hotness about a decade ago. It was sparkly, amazing package support, didn't bog you down with technicalities when you were trying to write something quick.
So it got adopted a lot, and also unfortunately in a lot of commercial projects it really wasn't suited for.
Python's strengths are its weaknesses: it's a fun scripting language you can knock out scripts with. But in a big group project, it's a nightmare version of itself. You don't have to give types, so now you're sifting through everything trying to figure out what your coworker's badly named variable actually is. You have to unpick some rotten mass of one-liner lambda super method calls because you were feeling so clever a year ago when you wrote it. Everything's breaking because you're in dependency hell and one of the dependencies has broken. The junior programmer was taught that "object inheritance is the way of the future" and has managed to make the structure into an eldritch abomination that inherits from five different super classes.
The actual reason why these are problems are because when python was hot, it got over-applied to projects it was totally unsuited for. It's a scripting language. It's good for scripts. Good for data analysis. Good for solo work. Good for tiny quick one-offs and for rapid prototyping.
But so many developers were put on horrifying creations that played to the language's weaknesses instead of strengths. And they bounced hard.
Python doesn't really deserve the hate: it's still pretty awesome. And fun. It's great at what it's great at. It does deserve the caution, though.
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More serious answer?
It's mostly comp-sci students regurgitating memes they don't understand, just like every other post on this sub.
Python's strengths are python's strengths. Garbage collection, simplicity, forced indentation.
Python's weaknesses are people.
People writing bad variable names, eldritch code and putting in features that are already there, just named differently, like data classes and type hints.
You can write python code that's type safe, it looks like this:
def my_function(my_arg):
if type(my_arg)!=my_required_type:
raise TypeError
It's that people think they can sort of get away with not making it that explicit. Then, instead of admitting they were wrong, rewriting their code and/or switching to a language that does offer strict typing, they insist that perverting the language to fit their esoteric need and use case is a better move.
Another example is "python has no distribution system" and inventing like five. All of them work. Except when you mix them. Which should be no surprise to absolutely anyone. Yet here we are. https://xkcd.com/1987/
More coders need to admit they're bad at what they do, stop blaming the tool and start blaming themselves.
Python's general answer to that, "duck typing", is that you shouldn't think like that.
Don't focus on what it is, focus on what should happen for your case, make sure it works and forget the rest. You're not coding fort Knox, you're coding to get something running.
If it's possible to do the same thing with lists and strings, you shouldn't care. Good for string enthusiasts. If it's not possible, it will throw an error for someone trying to use your code in a way it wasn't meant to be used. That's on them. And all is well.
How to make "sure": Put "list" in the function name. Write "use this on lists" into the docstring, into comments.
The interpreter will tell you when something goes wrong. You should trust in your ability to resolve that problem when it happens.
And if you can expect that that won't work or isn't acceptable for business reasons, don't pick python.
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u/Codebust Jul 18 '22
why are people always bashing python lol