First: this is about Python, not IDEs - I suggest a moderator separate this post, and the posts below, to a new thread:
It boils down to static typing versus dynamic typing; and the workflow that goes along with that.-tinjaw
No, it doesn't
- you can do dynamic typing even if you have to predeclare variables (just declare them as "var" rather than a specific type). Even though I generally prefer static typing (catching bugs at compile-time =
), I do accept that dynamic typing can be useful (especially while prototyping stuff - nice not having to bother with endless type conversions)... but not requiring variables to be predefined is a big mistake, IMHO.
And I also agree with mouser that it's also a big mistake depending on indentation for program structure... there's just too many ways this can screw you over, and it's not like it's a big hurdle to {enclose structural blocks}. These two things are items I find
problematic (and downright stupid) in the
core Python language.
Also, as mouser, I think the "__self__" for Python OOP looks kludgy, nasty and superfluous. This is more of an aesthetic issue though, and not something that bothers me majorly. Most importantly, it's not
dangerous as the above two points.
Final gripe is probably the standard library, which feels... messy. Some stuff tries to look like POSIX C which is OK for a lot of stuff, while other parts look like WIN32 emulations. Of course one shouldn't re-invent the wheel all the time, but it would be nice with a somewhat more
coherent standard library. There's also the issue of not everything being available everywhere, leading to perhaps having to do platform-specific code (probably less of a problem now than when I last bumped into it - and I can't remember the specifics anyway).
There's also been a fair amount of times where I've scratched my head pondering why a particular routine throws an exception instead of using a return code... IMHO exceptions should be for
exceptional conditions, whereas return codes signal "failure" that can be "expected" (ie, a file-read that fails would be an exception, file-not-found would be return code) - but when to use exceptions (and when
not to) is somewhat of a religious subject.
And most Python programmers do TDD, so bugs are found via testing and there is no need to compile so you just run and debuging realtime based on stacktraces (which are integraded into the python tools that are worthwhile using).-tinjaw
Even with that, I'm still a firm believe in my first two points... doing those properly costs you almost nothing, and will very likely end up saving you a
lot more in the end.
But in spite of all the above, I still do like Python, and find that it's a pretty nice tool for a lot of things, where you'd spend too much time in C++ focusing on auxillary stuff rather than getting your job done.
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