So why should you read what I have to say on the subject?
This one is easy. I'm not a luminary in the field of python. I'm just Joe Developer. I am the user base. If something annoys me then it could annoy others.
1. Division sucks in Python
This is fixed in Python 3 and right now in the python version I am using I can do from __future__ import division. Nevertheless this should have been fixed ages ago with the release of python 2.4.3 or earlier. Why python 2.4.3? Because it was on that release that I started doing professional python coding.
2. TKinter blows
I've done a tiny bit of TKinter coding. I stopped because it was too ugly. Python needs either an updated, prettier version of TKinter or it needs something in its place as part of core python.
3. Lambdas make it easy to obfuscate code
I remember when I thought Lambdas was overheated excrement. I changed my mind. I found myself obfuscating my code, or trying to stumble through someone else's code that was ridden with lambdas. I suppose they have their place, but it seems like 90% of the time they don't add anything besides reducing your line count by a small amount.
4. Sorting objects by attributes is annoying
Yes, the snippet of code is trivial. Still, couldn't sorting objects by attributes or dictionaries by elements be made a bit easier? sort and sorted should have this built right in. I still have to look this up each and every time.
5. Regex should be a built-in function
Actually I sit on the fence on this one. Sometimes I wish python was like Perl and Ruby in that you didn't need to call in a new module when you needed a regular expression. Other times I am grateful I don't have to wade through the inevitable obfuscated crap we coders all too easily generate with regular expressions.
6. Reload could be less annoying
I am a python coder. I love the shell. Except reload only works on modules. Bah! I want it to work on every object in the stack.
7. Help doesn't let me skip over the '__' methods
Python's introspection and documentation features makes me happy. And yet when I have to scroll past __and__, __or__, and __barf__ each time I type help(myobject), I get just a tiny bit cranky. I want help to accept an optional boolean that defaults to True. If you set it to False you skip anything with double underscores.
8. Not enough female Pythonistas
I'm lucky that I work with a lady pythonista. And I've got an internet friend who is also a lady pythonista.
And that is it.
What a damned shame.
Conclusion
I've just handed you eight things to think about. It was hard coming up with actual meaningful things, which proves that at heart I'm just a gushing Guido Van Rossum fan boy.
Update 2011/11/04
New commentary on this post is at Redux: Python Things I dont like
If that's all you can come up with, you're doing pretty good.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny - my first few weeks of Python, I was deeply disappointed that I couldn't just do regexes /like in Perl/. I don't think I'd change it now, though - it would muck with the consistency and obviousness, and I've come to value that more than saving the keystrokes.
ReplyDeleteI can only come up with one thing:
1. DB-API2 allowing *five different syntaxes* for bind variables. Heresy against the Zen!
Reloading every instantiated object on the stack is insane (should it re-init the object through its constructor, what happens to references to self or attributes on self, methods that disappear/change behavior, etc.) and I don't think *any* language will let you do that. Even Erlang with its infamous "hot swap" does the same dance as Python (only for new invocations of code.)
ReplyDeleteAs Chris said, if that's all you can complain about, Python is doing pretty well :-)
@jespern, I should have been more clear on the reload issue. I want to be able to do reload(my_module), reload(my_class), reload(my_function), and reload(my_variable). I want specificity, not an insane generic function. Then you can re-init as needed. I think that is a bit more realistic.
ReplyDelete@Catherine, when I first used Python I needed to use DB-API2 and it nearly broke my heart. Now I rely on stuff like SqlAlchemy, DjangoOrm, and hopefully some day soon Sql-Python in order to use python to interact with Sqlite3 and PostGreSQL.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest complains aren't in Python itself, but in the standard library. Python 3 goes a long way to cleaning up some of the cruft and illogical baggage that's developed over the years, but in the 2.x line, you have things like urllib and urllib2.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of Tkinter being ugly, Ttk support was added for 2.7/3.1.
ReplyDelete"7. Help doesn't let me skip over the '__' methods"
ReplyDeleteSomebody wrote a friendlier replacement for dir() called see(). Maybe it's time to write a friendlier replacement for help(). Python is nice enough to let us! :-)
> TKinter blows
ReplyDeleteI am happy with PyGTK really.
> ... a lady pythonista
LOL! I'm too. Now I now her nick for end of times:)
It sounds cool!:)