

Python 3: A Response to the Doubters - ode
http://frompythonimportpodcast.com/2014/03/31/episode-017-the-one-about-python-3/

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inglesp
Note that this dates from the end of March. So it's not ancient history, but
nor is it a response to recent discussions in this area.

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mjhea0
Awesome podcast!!

There's still a major lack of communication happening.

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glibgil
Just a reminder that some languages and implementations never make it to their
next big version. Perl 6 never broke. hhvm has not made everyone forget about
PHP 5. Sometimes a language peaks when you are still in the mediocre (or
horrible) implementation days. Unfortunately it is probably safer to bet
against Python 3 and Python in general in the long run. If anyone has
misgivings you should switch to a different language entirely.

I would suggest the follow in order of interest to you and your pay grade:

Haskell: Runtime is great and fast. Great syntax (but alien to most). Many
hard problems have been solved with fantastic libraries.

JavaScript: V8 and Node.js make a great runtime implementation. Sweet.js will
let you fix all the warts of the language.

Lua: Fast runtime in either of the major implementations (Lua 5 or LuaJIT).
Python is never going to beat it. Python is said to have nice syntax, but if
you like to use ternary operators in Python or multi-expression lambdas
(impossible) your Python code will be ugly anyway. So, if you care about
syntax use Haskell or Sweet.js. If you are using Python you are actually in
syntax hell and Lua will be a relief.

~~~
tst
About 7 years ago I wrote my first line of Python and I loved it. Before that
I had some experience with C and PHP and the clarity of code and the great
documentation was mind blowing.

The slogan 'batteries included' was actually true. You could do so much stuff
out of the box and I learned to love the language. The community back then was
pretty small (at least the German-speaking one) and they welcomed new people.

In the last months it doesn't feel right anymore. The hate in the community
discourages me. It doesn't feel like the Python I learned to love anymore.

And I'm sad about that development.

About 3 months ago I looked around for an other language. I wasn't up-to-date
on the language development since Haskell became more popular (around 2008?)
and quite a bit happened since then.

So I looked around, looked at some code, some new languages, read a few blog
posts on each and finally settled on learning Clojure. I loved Lisps (more
specifically Scheme) but the environment was – imho – a bit problematic.

I adopted a lot from functional languages into my Python coding over the years
so the transition wasn't that hard. And I really love the language so far. The
community seems to be quite active and is welcoming. :)

