Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3

Posted Aug 4, 2021 11:20 UTC (Wed) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129)
In reply to: Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3 by rschroev
Parent article: Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3

What you're describing doesn't make the language more difficult to compile, it just makes it hard to run efficiently, and that is true regardless of whether compilation or interpretation is used. That doesn't change the fact that the latter in an implementation detail and not a property of the language per se.

And besides, you've missed the point of the thread. rsidd implied in his original post that Python had some advantage over other languages due to the fact that the most commonly used implementation is an interpreter, and I have yet to see any evidence for that claim. Even more confusingly, he even stated that Julia is faster, just as easy to write and catches more bugs at compile time, so at that point one has to ask what advantages Python as a language could possibly bring to the table, and how they relate to the fact that CPython doesn't compile to machine code (and obviously my presumption is that they don't, but I'd like to hear rsidd's arguments).

Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3

Posted Aug 4, 2021 12:18 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (4 responses)

> one has to ask what advantages Python as a language could possibly bring to the table

Python is a good language, with a large ecosystem, and wide expertise. Those things matter. Julia's a very good language and its ecosystem is getting there. Python currently has one other advantage over Julia: the latter has very large start-up time (reduced recently but still significant) because of JIT compilation. Great throughput, terrible latency.

If Julia can get over the JIT delays, and especially if it can produce machine-executable binaries, I don't see why it can't be used for large projects (generally, not just in science) instead of python. Especially given its ability to import python packages (increasingly not needed, IMO).

But, even in that case, it makes no sense to rewrite an existing large python codebase, from a time when Julia didn't exist, in Julia.

Many physicists still use Fortran 77. The code exists and it works.

Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3

Posted Aug 4, 2021 12:32 UTC (Wed) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link] (3 responses)

None of what you mentioned has anything to do with your previous point about “compiled languages”. “Good language” is entirely subjective, large ecosystem and wide expertise has nothing to do with whether it's compiled or interpreted. Large start-up time is also not an issue with compiled languages in general. In fact, it's usually the other way around. So yeah, your point about “compiled languages”: I'm not seeing it. It's a mostly irrelevant implementation detail.

Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3

Posted Aug 4, 2021 16:12 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (2 responses)

At the time python started becoming popular, the options were:

C/C++ (compiled)
Perl (unsuitable for large projects)
and a bunch of niche languages.

As I said, things are different now, Julia may be a great choice for a new project, so (more likely, for general purpose projects) may Go or Rust or Scala.

"Good language" is not "entirely subjective" any more than taste in music is "entirely subjective". Experts agree that Bach and Beethoven were great.

Paul Graham wrote this about Python in 2004. It is largely true 17 years later, even though the entire landscape has changed. Python may not necessarily be the best choice today for new projects, but it's still a very good choice if they aren't CPU-bound.

Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3

Posted Aug 5, 2021 9:22 UTC (Thu) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link] (1 responses)

Everything Paul Graham says about Python in your linked article equally applies to Perl. Indeed, he even mentions Perl and that his main point applies to it. Yet you claim that Perl is unsuitable for large projects while claiming that Python is somehow objectively a good language. Looks to me like you first picked your conclusion and then looked for arguments supporting this conclusion rather than following the data.

Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3

Posted Aug 5, 2021 9:36 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

Yes, he likes perl except that it looks like a "cartoon character swearing". Superficially but not fundamentally ugly. But he likes python better. So did many, many others. Perl basically fell out of favour because python was easier and better for almost everything.

Watson: Launchpad now runs on Python 3

Posted Aug 17, 2021 17:57 UTC (Tue) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]

Launchpad development started in 2004, Julia didn’t exist until 2012, so all this theorizing about whether Launchpad should have been written in Julia is pointless…