Python is DOOMED! Again!

Mario Figueiredo marfig at gmail.com
Thu Jan 22 05:31:51 EST 2015


 Rick,

> Python is the only thing that is pure in the programming world. The
> only language that offers the cleanest and most intuit-able syntax,
> AND YOU"RE JUST GOING TO THROW IT ALL AWAY SO YOU CAN BE A LAPDOG OF
> SATAN?

Nonsense. You are just used to it. I can read C with the same feeling of 
intuitiveness as you do Python. There's nothing inherently more intuitive 
about python and I just wished that meme died already. Besides it's all in 
the eye of the beholder. Some people, for intance, aren't all that comfortable 
about python white space as much as many die-hard pythonists would like to 
admit. It's not even a feature that gained traction on programming languages 
that came after python. 

> If you don't act now, then don't bother complaining later. Python is
> dangling by a thin thread, and this is your last chance to save
> everything we've worked for. All the lines of code we've written won't
> mean spit if the language takes a swan dive into obscurity!

PEP 484 just becomes silly when it comes to the section where it discusses 
whether type hints are pythonic. If that ridiculous paragraph reflects how 
we are looking today at the inclusion of new features, than I agree python 
is walking a dangerous road. But that also means Type Hints aren't the real 
problem here. We have a much bigger problem about the programming language 
principles and phylosophy.

In all honesty though, I never cared much about the ideals and zens in programming 
languages, especially ones want to want to adopt a batteries-included philosophy. 
Always seemed to me like nonsense talk. My experience taught me that you 
can't just have the latter without eventually breaking the former. 'import 
this' always read to me like wishful thinking.

Python isn't going anywhere towards obscurity. Not at least until a competiting 
language comes (it hasn't yet). I agree though that Python complexity has 
increased greatly over the years and this isn't showing any signs of stopping. 
And that is exactly the type of thing that promotes the birth of a new and 
better programming language. And, interestingly enough, that is always a 
good thing.





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