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What Are Your Python Pain Points, Really?

24 replies on 2 pages. Most recent reply: Mar 5, 2007 3:42 PM by Matt Gerrans

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Flat View: This topic has 24 replies on 2 pages [ « | 1 2 ]

Torsten Marek

Posts: 1
Nickname: shlomme
Registered: Feb, 2007

Re: What Are Your Python Pain Points, Really?

Posted: Feb 26, 2007 1:12 AM

1. os.path: There must be a decent way to handle files in the standard library.

2. str vs. unicode: Fortunately, that will go away with Python 3.0

3. I like generators and use them a lot. However, yielding values from nested generators is a pain. Maybe if Python had tail-call recursion, one could remedy that.

With greenlets, this is possible, so it should be supported by PyPy as well, though I haven't check lately.

Antonio Cavallo

Posts: 10
Nickname: cavallo71
Registered: Mar, 2006

Web programming.

Posted: Feb 28, 2007 5:44 AM

There are too many python's frameworks for web programming and
none of them has learn the lesson from php that is by far
the most used language for web (and the syntax is not
bad either especially compared to perl).

Php has two major points: is is simple to setup from
an administrator point of view (it really comes bundled
with all systems) and it has a trivial document model
(it is designed ground up to blend within html).

Thank to this simple model, users have the tools to build
frameworks bottom up that is more effective when
coding for a domain specific application.

Jim Carroll

Posts: 7
Nickname: mrmaple
Registered: Jan, 2006

More power than polish.

Posted: Mar 1, 2007 7:04 AM

I'm a very happy python programmer. There are a few things that I'm sure will happen eventually...

Innovation is not always coordinated. Python eggs are a great, valuable idea, but if you're coding a Windows application with py2exe, you can't use eggs (yet) because py2exe doesn't have a good way to package them.

I enjoy coding wxPython apps with code-templates, but there's still room for a really good dialog builder. XRCed is probably the best alternative right now.

Lack of type information prevents my text editor from doing code-completion. I actually think this is a good thing, since it encourages the developer to memorize more... and having Python (even partially) memorized is a very powerful feeling. However, lots of Java and C# programmers don't like it because they're used to having IDE crutches.

It's not ubiquitous (yet.) This makes it hard to run with a python project because someone on the team has to bring up all the alternatives. (looks up into the ceiling cam: Damn you Ruby! :)

-Jim

Brandon Corfman

Posts: 14
Nickname: bcorfman
Registered: Aug, 2003

Re: More power than polish.

Posted: Mar 2, 2007 8:02 AM

>I enjoy coding wxPython apps with code-templates, but there's still room for a really good dialog builder. XRCed is probably the best alternative right now.

Have you tried VisualWx? I really like it.

>Lack of type information prevents my text editor from doing code-completion.
Wing IDE, Komodo 4 or PyDev are good Python IDEs w/ pretty decent code completion if you haven't run across them yet. Makes it easier to sell to other developers, I agree.

Chris Greb

Posts: 1
Nickname: cgrebeld
Registered: Dec, 2006

Re: What Are Your Python Pain Points, Really?

Posted: Mar 3, 2007 6:58 AM

Lack of built-in support for true multi-threading on an SMP machine. I know there are many work-arounds for this but it would be nice if the threading modules in the standard library just worked as one would expect.

Jim Carroll

Posts: 7
Nickname: mrmaple
Registered: Jan, 2006

Re: More power than polish.

Posted: Mar 3, 2007 2:06 PM

> Wing IDE, Komodo 4 or PyDev are good Python IDEs w/ pretty
> decent code completion if you haven't run across them yet.
> Makes it easier to sell to other developers, I agree.

It's true, I use Wing IDE regularly, and if you assert your isinstances at the top of your functions, then the code completion is just about perfect:

def fun(a, b, c):
""" nice docstring. """
assert(isinstance(a, AsyncInterface))
assert(isinstance(b, BinaryStream))
assert(isinstance(c, Cache))

a.[list shows up just right]

But getting co-workers to do this is a pain... I still heard
about the lack of code completion.

-Jim

Matt Gerrans

Posts: 1153
Nickname: matt
Registered: Feb, 2002

Re: self self self

Posted: Mar 4, 2007 11:19 PM

I guess it was a contrived example, but:

[[x, 2*x] for x in range(20) if x % 2]

Is the same as:

[[x, 2*x] for x in range(1,20,2)]

Matt Gerrans

Posts: 1153
Nickname: matt
Registered: Feb, 2002

Re: More power than polish.

Posted: Mar 4, 2007 11:23 PM

>... don't like it because they're used to having
> IDE crutches.

Crutch? Why is a useful IDE a crutch? Is an editor a crutch? Is Python a crutch? Shouldn't you just be typing in machine instructions on a numeric keypad?

This reminds me of the annoying old "syntatic candy" canard.

The more the computer does, the better.

Merriodoc Brandybuck

Posts: 225
Nickname: brandybuck
Registered: Mar, 2003

Re: self self self

Posted: Mar 5, 2007 6:02 AM

> I guess it was a contrived example, but:
>

[[x, 2*x] for x in range(20) if x % 2]

> Is the same as:
>

[[x, 2*x] for x in range(1,20,2)]

It was. I have on that cranks through the event log and only outputs certain records. Something like

[logEntry for logEntry in allEntries if allEntries.logName == "myLog"]

But I can't remember the exact syntax and that particular block of code is not accessible to me at the moment so I didn't want to copy a total hack. Besides, that example is easily digested without having to go flail about documentation to figure out what pieces of pythonwin I'm using if they were so interested.

Glad to know I'm not the only language lawyer hanging around here :-)

Haven't seen you around these parts lately Matt.

Matt Gerrans

Posts: 1153
Nickname: matt
Registered: Feb, 2002

Re: self self self

Posted: Mar 5, 2007 3:42 PM

> Haven't seen you around these parts lately Matt.

Yeah, if I'm not careful, someone is going to usurp my Posts standing (if it hasn't happened already).

I wanted to chime in on several of the long threads lately, but I don't like to make points that have already been made and I don't have time to get all the way though all the posts. :(

Maybe I'll just set aside an hour or two a week for Artima...

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