17
AleCx04
4y

love-hate relationship with Python semi-rant
The year is 2020.

I have already grown accustomed to the idea that in order to do ML without worrying too much about having to completely jump through hoops with the tech stack I have chosen that I would have to settle with Python, which I like.....for small scripts that don't do much other than piping data around or doing simple admin tasks, that is generally our use of Python at work.
For anything bigger I would prefer something else. Not because I find anything inherently horrible in Python, I find it to be a nice language overall, that has made it possible for many to find a passion inside of the world of development and possibly an interesting in overall engineering and computer science principles. Much respect Python, good game Guido VR, what you did changed the world.

But it is that damn whitespace that gets me, the need to use it as a way to properly write blocks, I just can't make myself like syntactical whitespace no matter what I do. I can do without static typing, shit I did it for the longest time with JS way tf before Node and Typescript were a thing, and I have done it before PHP's attempt at having type hints, which still leave much to be desired. Ruby(imho) the most elegant language around doesn't have it and that is fine really, it does not bother me as much, if mypy gets powerful and widely adopted enough it will then be a non-issue.

But another thing that the 4 languages i mentioned before have is non-existent syntactical whitespace......I just can't stand it.

So, why am I saying all of this nonsense? Today I wanted to recreate a conda environment and landed on the use of YAML............which has syntactic whitespace and I lost my shit.

I seldom bitch about languages and technologies, shit, I used VBScript before, not only did I get paid handsomely for it, but I fucking enjoyed it(probably cuz I am a masochist).

But two things I cannot abide: VBA and syntactic whitespace.

Once I get enough knowledge for it I will push for the same level of tooling in Python to be ported to Scala.

Thank you for coming to my whiny post about something as small as bitching about syntactic whitespace.

Comments
  • 2
  • 0
    @RememberMe Thank you for preventing me from reinventing the wheel, since I was working on something similar
  • 0
    @RememberMe @CodeTalker @rutee07

    Thing is, I had already looked at this project before, and the fact remains that it seems that it has very small traction behind it which normally means that eventually it will get abandoned/forgotten, which is one of the main things that prevent me from fully adopting something like this. Its more of an entire mental shift in it, some people in Python are more than happy with the way things are with the current language and its workings :< because of this I doubt i would ever see it as a viable option :( no matter how much I want it.
  • 0
    “Guido VR” - looks like nice name for new virtual reality headset with python support 😂
  • 0
    Since you mentioned ML and Python:

    If you are using tensorflow, you could try Swift instead of Python.
  • 0
    @Lensflare That is not a bad suggestion, how well supported would you say tooling is for that?
  • 0
    @AleCx04 I had not tried tensorflow yet. I only have experience with swift for ios and command line applications.
  • 0
    Yeah man this syntactical whitespace is just crazy
Add Comment