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Comment by alexpotato

3 days ago

As both a long time Perl and long time Python user who has seen both used in production, here are some of my thoughts:

Perl

- Was an easy jump from bash to Perl

- Perl never felt like it "got in the way"

- was WAY too easy to write "write only code"

- that being said, I learned Java first and most people found MY Perl code to be very legible

- regexes as first class citizen were amazing

- backwards compatible is GREAT for older systems still running Perl (looking at you banks and some hedge funds)

Python

- Forced indentation made it MUCH easier to read other people's code

- everything is an object from day one was much better than "bless" in Perl

- no standard way of setting up an environment for MANY years hurt

- sklearn and being taught in universities were real game changers

40 comments

alexpotato

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shermantanktop  3 days ago

> no standard way of setting up an environment for MANY years hurt

Serious question: is that solved? I still see a forest of options, some of which depend on each other, and at last count my laptop has 38 python binaries. What's the standard way?

  • mindcrime  2 days ago

    There's no "de jure" standard, but uv sure looks like it's on its way to becoming the "de facto" standard.

  • zahlman  2 days ago

    > Serious question: is that solved?

    It depends on what "setting up" means.

    Creating an environment, given that the Python binary it will use is already installed, is trivial (standard library functionality since late 2012). So is choosing which environment to use. So is installing pre-built packages, and even legacy source packages are pretty easy (but slow, and installation runs arbitrary code which is entirely needless for these) when they only contain pure Python code. Even dependency resolution is usually not too bad.

    The big problems are things like

    * building multi-language packages from source locally, because this is expected to set up temporary local build environments (and build tools have to avoid recursion there)

    * using external non-Python dependencies (essentially unsolved, and everyone works around this by either vendoring stuff or by not declaring the dependency and failing at runtime) — see https://pypackaging-native.github.io/ for an overview of the problems and https://peps.python.org/pep-0725/ for what they're trying to standardize to deal with it

    * dealing with metadata for source packages; in the really general case you have to build the source to get this (although the package-building API now provides a hook so that build backends can specifically prepare metadata). This is mainly because some packages have dependencies that depend on very particular platform details that (apparently) can't be expressed with the "environment marker" scheme in standard metadata (https://peps.python.org/pep-0508/#environment-markers)

    * and, of course, figuring out which packages need to be in your environment (Python won't decide for you what your direct dependencies are) and managing that environment over time. The reason all these other tools popped up is because Pip only installs the packages and offers very basic environment inspection; it's only now starting to do anything with lockfiles, for example, now that there is finally a standard for them (https://peps.python.org/pep-0751/).

    But if you mean, is there a standard toolchain that does everything and will be officially blessed by the core language developers, then no, you should not ever expect this. There is no agreement on what "everything" entails, and Python users (a large fraction of which don't fit the traditional image of a "developer" at all) have widely varying workflows and philosophical/aesthetic preferences about that. Besides which, the core language team doesn't generally work on or care about the problem; they care about the interpreter first and foremost. Packaging is an arms-length consideration. Good news, though: the Python Packaging Authority (not at all authoritative, and named with tongue firmly in cheek, but a lot of people didn't get that) is stepping up and working on official governance (see https://peps.python.org/pep-0772/).

    > at last count my laptop has 38 python binaries

    Something has gone very wrong (unless you're on Windows, such that admin rights would be needed to create symlinks and by default `venv` doesn't try). To be clear, I mean with your setup, not with the tooling. You should only need one per distinct version of Python that your various environments use. I'd be happy to try to help if you'd like to shoot me an email (I use that Proton service, with the same username as here) and give more details on how things are currently set up and what you're trying to accomplish that way.

m463  2 days ago

> - no standard way of setting up an environment for MANY years hurt

I will say coming from years of perl that python had a refreshing amount of "batteries included" via the standard library.

It was only rarely that my code needed "outside help", usually something like requests or numpy.

I suspect this is because I used python in the same environment as perl, automating unixy kinds of things.

I suspect "setting up an environment" is because python has been so successful, becoming an enormously broad general language.

j45  3 days ago

Articles that poopoo on one language kind of have a dated all/nothing perspective.

Most languages have a decent enough framework or two that the differences between using them for different use cases may be closer than many folks realize vs whatever we hear about as the new hotness through the grapevine.

A mess can be made in a lot of languages, and a long time ago, it was even easier, except some of that code worked and it didn't get touched for a long time.

  • burnt-resistor  2 days ago

    Toolbox vs. religious zealotry. Sometimes, one has to maintain .bat files, Tcl, F77, or COBOL. Professionals don't whine or wince, but do the job.

somat  14 hours ago

I never did much perl, what is the standard way to setup a perl environment? CPAN?