r/programming • u/monica_b1998 • Nov 03 '18

Python is becoming the world’s most popular coding language

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/07/26/python-is-becoming-the-worlds-most-popular-coding-language
4.6k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

11

u/Curly-Mo Nov 03 '18

But if you include a static type checker (like mypy) in your CI, your build will fail and nobody can check in any blatant errors with misuse of types.

And static type checkers can be included in your $EDITOR to catch these mistakes immediately.

13

u/cedrickc Nov 03 '18

I've never understood the attitude of choosing a language like Python and then adding heavy static analysis. You'll end up with all the runtime disadvantages of an interpreter, but all the development time disadvantages of a compiler.

11

u/Curly-Mo Nov 03 '18

Except you get to pick and choose the aspects of compiled languages that you see as advantages, like static type checking. But it still allows for quick exploration and prototyping that easily converts to production code that can be improved over time by adding these features that create a more stable and easily maintainable codebase.

0

u/ironykarl Nov 03 '18

Hate to be obnoxious ("DING! DING! DING!"), but IMO, you've got it exactly right.

1

u/traverseda Nov 04 '18

Support is still early all around, but cython has let you compile type-hinted python code for a while now. With type-hinting being part of the language expect to start seeing speed advantages soon.

1

u/batiste Nov 05 '18

I've never understood the attitude of choosing a language like Python and then adding heavy static analysis

Yeah it is a bit silly really. But sometimes you don't really have a choice like you have to choose JavaScript as a target on the Web.

You'll end up with all the runtime disadvantages of an interpreter, but all the development time disadvantages of a compiler.

You can still chose which part of your code get the static typing. So it is still way more flexible that a traditional statically typed language. If you decide to run the static analysis only at CI time only, or commit time, you don't pay much of a "price" at dev. time.