learning python ...

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, May 26, 2021 at 5:49 PM hw <hw at adminart.net> wrote:
>
> On 5/25/21 10:32 AM, Chris Angelico wrote:
> > On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 1:00 PM hw <hw at adminart.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 5/24/21 3:54 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
> >>> You keep using that word "unfinished". I do not think it means what
> >>> you think it does.
> >>
> >> What do you think I think it means?
> >
> > I think it means that the language is half way through development,
> > doesn't have enough features to be usable, isn't reliable enough for
> > production, and might at some point in the future become ready to use.
>
> Right, that is what it seemed.

And that's where you're insulting (a) the Python devs, (b) the Python
user community, and (c) everyone who dares to use such a language in
production.

Without evidence.

> > None of which is even slightly supported by evidence.
>
> That's not true.  Remember the change from version 2 to 3 and ask
> yourself how likely it is that breaking things like that happens again.
>   You may find a statement from developers about a policy that changes
> are to be announced a year before they go in, and that is evidence enough.
>
> What you make of this policy and what it means to you is for you to
> decide, but the evidence is clearly there.

Ah yes. A breaking change *a decade ago*, and which has been clearly
stated as not being repeated, is cause for you to be scared. Can you
quit fudding please?

> > You can complain about whether it's likeable or not, but all you're
> > doing is demonstrating the Blub Paradox.
>
> And you remain unable to show how python making it easy to mess up type
> names is a likeable feature.

Exactly what I'm saying about Blub. You assume that every language has
to treat type names as keywords, because that's the only model that
fits inside your brain.

> It looked unfinished to me because it doesn't even give an error message
> when I assign something to a type name as if it was a variable.

That's because a type name IS a variable, yet you can't understand
that this is a good thing.

> > Yes, because C uses keywords for types. That's the only difference
> > you're seeing here. You keep getting caught up on this one thing, one
> > phenomenon that comes about because of YOUR expectations that Python
> > and C should behave the same way. If you weren't doing isinstance
> > checks, you wouldn't even have noticed this! It is *NOT* a fundamental
> > difference.
>
> When it doesn't make a difference, then why doesn't python just use
> keywords for types and avoids all this ambiguity?

Because Python has a lot of types, and lets you create your own.
Fundamentally it *cannot* use keywords for every type name that you
might create.

> > Also, you keep arguing against the language, instead of just using it
> > the way it is. It really sounds to me like you'd do better to just
> > give up on Python and go use some language that fits your brain
> > better. If you won't learn how a language works, it's not going to
> > work well for you.
>
> I'm not arguing against the language but discussing it with people who
> are trying to defend it.  I tried to use it yesterday and failed because
> the documentation of a library I wanted to use it with is bad, and
> because maybe it wasn't such a good library.  I would use it with
> another library for another purpose, but there is no documentation for
> that library at all, so I can't use it.  So currently, it's not looking
> good for learning python.

Yes, you are arguing against the language.

I'm done arguing with you. Clearly you do not want to use Python - you
want to warp it to fit inside your own brain. Go use something else
that actually works for you, and let the rest of us be productive with
languages that are more powerful than you dare imagine.

ChrisA