My standard response when someone asks me how I deal with Python being such a slow language is that Python is by far the fastest to write, cleanest, more maintainable programming language I know, and…
My work uses python and it hasn’t been bad for new code that has tests and types. Old code we inherited from contractors and “yolo startup” types is less good, but we’ve generally be improving that as we touch it.
Also fastest to write? I’d say JS or Ruby are just as fast or barley slower.
What most people mean is that Python has great Libraries which do the thing you want without much fuss. But thats more on the libraries than on the language.
I do not know Ruby, but Python has a lot of syntactic sugar that, if one becomes used to and proficient with it, makes writing much faster than other languages I know (including JavaScript).
i had the misfortune once of having to try to understand a >400kLoC python codebase in a critical position and let me tell you that maintainability is a Problem. the system was older than most of the best practices of today and had a structure i can only describe as “a duolith of sqlalchemy soup”.
Maintainable? I have not ever had to work with any large Python projects, but from what I have heard, maintenance is a large pain point.
My work uses python and it hasn’t been bad for new code that has tests and types. Old code we inherited from contractors and “yolo startup” types is less good, but we’ve generally be improving that as we touch it.
There’s one key qualifier in this sentence: I know. One’s skill set matters, I guess…
Let me guess: The author knows Python, C, C++, Java and maybe PHP.
Also fastest to write? I’d say JS or Ruby are just as fast or barley slower.
What most people mean is that Python has great Libraries which do the thing you want without much fuss. But thats more on the libraries than on the language.
i’m proficient in all 3, and i can say with great certainty that generally python is far faster to write
certainly when you’re talking about JS rather than TS, and achiving a usable outcome rather than bashing together bug-ridden trash
I do not know Ruby, but Python has a lot of syntactic sugar that, if one becomes used to and proficient with it, makes writing much faster than other languages I know (including JavaScript).
Ruby has enough syntactic sugar to give you type 2 diabetes honestly.
i had the misfortune once of having to try to understand a >400kLoC python codebase in a critical position and let me tell you that maintainability is a Problem. the system was older than most of the best practices of today and had a structure i can only describe as “a duolith of sqlalchemy soup”.
It’s not too bad if you strictly enforce Pyright, Pylint and Black.
But I have yet to work with Python code other than my own that does that. So in practice you are right.
There are dozens of us. Dozens!