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The Problem with Python (arantaday.com)
5 points by smanek on Sept 6, 2008 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments


It's well written and easy to understand, and I like the format of the code samples.

However, the topic bugs me slightly - "Why XXX is problematic" is a completely milked out topic, just like "Why XXX is better than YYY", "XXX is Awesome", etc. Although your writing isn't bad, I prefer to read about new ideas, not criticisms of already-existing products (although criticisms well deserved in some cases).

Don't take this too personally, of course - writing about new things is much harder, and even writing about things which may have not been summarized as concisely or not been put in your words is good practice.


These are fairly tired criticisms of python.

For the first example, learn to use the "global" keyword. It makes those things work, and it's clearer what you're doing when others read it.

lambda's are weak because in a language that uses whitespace, you can't easily have a function declared inline be more that one line. You can declare functions anywhere though, so if you need a complicated lambda, just declare a def above it and proceed as usual.

The floats bother me too. I'm not sure why they're so messed up.


This is my first blog post (I know, I'm behind the times). I'd appreciate any feedback (writing style, site aesthetic, etc).

Thanks




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