Re: Java versus Python

  • From: Q <q@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2011 00:12:32 -0400


Ugh, ugh ugh this is the last time, but I'll play.
First, an implementation of multimethods/multiple dispatch as you ignorantly continue to insist Python doesn't support this feature.
http://alexgaynor.net/2010/jun/26/multimethods-python/
Then, a demonstration of idiomatic python dealing with dispatching based on argument:

def act_on_argument(arg):
 actions = {
  "condition": func_to_call,
  "other_condition": other_func_to_call,
 42: yet_something_else,
 }
 if arg in actions:
  actions[arg]()
 else:
  raise ValueError('unsure what to do with %r' % arg)

for more details, see: http://stevemorin.blogspot.com/2005/11/python-switch-case-statement.html

And finally, a set of articles that I hope will finally bring this thread to a close.
First:
Python is not Java:
http://dirtsimple.org/2004/12/python-is-not-java.html
Followed by:
Java is not Python, either:
http://dirtsimple.org/2004/12/java-is-not-python-either.html

Note that there's some discussion on there about Interfaces which has been rendered dated with the introduction of abstract base classes to the stdlib.

Please, please, please. Before writing your next message trying to point out what you consider to be an awful, horrible misfeature/simply not included in Python or whatever, do a little bit of Googling first? You'll save all of us a lot of time. In most cases you'll find that Python either already has a superior method for accomplishing what you're wanting to do, or, surprise! you can create one, because you are not limited to those capabilities which the language designers felt would be sufficient. In all of this FUD about what Python can and can't do, not once did I hear a single word about more advanced and useful concepts, such as metaprogramming, which Python accomplishes via the use of decorators and metaclasses. Hell, unless I'm much mistaken, the Java language doesn't even support closures, meaning you're doomed to violating the don't repeat yourself principle in the most awful of ways.

Oh, and don't even get me started on your silly arbitrary rules like one class per file and no top-level functions.
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom-of-nouns.html

And one final note. As you probably noticed, I'm in the habit of supplying sources when I make claims. I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd do similar so I know that you're not just spewing bullshit?
     Thanks much,
     Q




On 6/20/2011 10:58 PM, Sina Bahram wrote:
Can you show an example of that please?

Take care,
Sina

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Perry
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 8:45 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Java versus Python

Your right Sina and wrong it really is not that messy specially if you use a
dictionary to call other functions but your right it is not function
overloading but it does allow the called function to look like its
overloaded and you only have to write the conditional's once so it's not
that big of deal.

Ken
-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sina Bahram
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 3:09 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Java versus Python

Uhm, no, you don't get function overloading at all, what-so-ever, in any way
shape or form.

You get a holy mess because, exactly as he pointed out, you then have to
have if statements inside of your method to figure out
whether the value is the default value or not.

Sorry, but this isn't overloading at all. It's simply default parameters.

Take care,
Sina


-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Perry
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 1:53 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Java versus Python


No not dictionaries named  variables.  For example

Def myfunc (stringArg="my string",intArg=1):
   Print "%d %s" % (intArg,StringArg)

Then you can do

myFunc(stringArg="blah")
myFunc(intArg=5)
myfunc("blah",9)

So you get kind of a function overloading

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Homme, James
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 1:25 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Java versus Python

Hi Ken,
Are you talking about dictionaries or something else? I tried to google this
and I'm unsure if I'm reading the right stuff.

Thanks.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Perry
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 12:27 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Java versus Python

This is not true with python and named variables.

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of black ares
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 12:21 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Java versus Python

Another problem I've meet with weak typing is polymorphism.
If I want a behavior for a int value and other behavior for a string value,
I can not write same method with diferent arguments and different behaviors.
I am left only with the optionto write two different methods and to do ugly
if else statements.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sina Bahram"<sbahram@xxxxxxxxx>
To:<programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 2:51 PM
Subject: RE: Java versus Python


There are two issues, just so we don't' conflate them.

One is the issue of the grammar in question, and the second is the parser
for this grammar.

So, the grammar for java uses left/right brace for block level scoping,
and the grammar for python uses indention level.

Short humorous aside, everyone says indentation instead of indention, but
isn't indentation what you actually do to someone's head
in a fight, not to your code? Sorry, I love grammars, regardless of
context, *smile*, pun intended.

Ok, so if one were to simply say that missing a space is like forgetting a
brace, then, everything else being equal, it would be a
similar error; however, it isn't exactly the same thing. Spacing for
indention purposes happens on a line by line basis, as opposed
to the one time operation that is putting, or not putting, an
opening/closing brace.

Also, forgetting a closing brace leaves a block of code open, and
forgetting a space instead closes a block.

Ok, so now if we have some code, if I forget a closing brace, that's not
fun, but it's at least pretty easy to detect because
chances are that I'll open a method declaration or do something else that
doesn't happen inside of a block.

If I forget a space, i simply close the block, so a bug can stay there
forever, because all that's happened is that I've simply
closed it one line too soon, or maybe a few lines too soon ... so that
code still runs, but maybe just not on the conditional I
want, or maybe it overrides a value.

In other words, I'm putting forth that forgetting a closing brace is
actually more destructive than forgetting a space, but because
of this, the parser quickly ends up finding something that is an illegal
syntax error or just something at the semantic level that
doesn't make sense, and so there's a much higher chance of you finding out
about it before you ever come to run your program even
once.

That, I hope, addresses the issue of grammars.

Now, moving onto parsers.

The parser for Python, I feel, and this is subjective, doesn't give as
good feedback to the programmer as the java one does. The
reason for this really isn't the python guys' fault, at least not always,
and that's because of a lack of typing. Because of this,
sometimes error messages are perceived as vague and not useful.

In java, alternatively, the compiler knows exactly what its expecting,
what would even make the code syntactically correct, and so
not only can it give you feedback along the lines of an argument being of
a wrong type, but tell you what it was thinking should go
there instead.

Anyways, just some thoughts.


Take care,
Sina







-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Homme, James
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 7:25 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Java versus Python

Hi,
What would Java have done in a case like this? According to me, this would
be a logic error whether or not it had anything to do
with indentation. I would think that it would be very easy to miss a right
brace at the end of a code block. This would especially
be true since Java allows you to have a single statement without using a
right brace. It could be that I am missing something here
in my thinking.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Perry
Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2011 12:22 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Java versus Python

This is true while I won't get into the what language is better since I
write in too many in my job to even want to have an opinion people need to
realize that miss placed spaces are nothing like context problems in other
languages.  If you miss place a block of spaced lines you don't just cause
an error in the code.  In fact the code might run along happily with no
errors but the code won't do what you want.  This is one of the down falls
of python.  There was actually a bug in the Icon and Braille+ that has
been
out for years that we only just recently found because of this very fact.
One of the sighted guys that works on the project even missed it because
the
block of 10 lines of code just looked like it was supposed to be out there
on its own.

Ken



-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John J. Boyer
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2011 11:38 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Java versus Python

The mandatory indentation in Python means that a single misplaced
whitespace
can entirely destroy a program. This is not very robust. C programmers
usually make sure their code is nicely indented by using a utility like
the
Gnu indent. I'm still looking for something similar for Java. Manual
indentation is too error-prone.

John

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 08:32:55PM -0600, Littlefield, Tyler wrote:
Java uses it's indentation much like braces are used. It's not where
things have to be in specific columns, but indentation sort of solves
a couple problems.
1) It means that all blocks of code are denoted by a deeper
indentation level than the block that branched it.
2) It also means that people usually stick to a nice style. I've seen
a lot of different code, for example:
while (bla)
do_something();
while (bla) {
do_something
}
while (bla)
{
do_something();
}

Indentation can be a bit hard to get used to, but I personally like it
quite a lot.
On 6/17/2011 8:30 PM, John J. Boyer wrote:
The thing I dislike about Python is mandatory indentation. This seems
to me a throwback to the old days of assembly language and Cobol,
where things had to be in certain columns. I like the free-form
syntax of Java and C.

John

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 07:15:55PM -0700, David Tseng wrote:
I personally find arguments about programming languages much
analogous to those seen in politics.  Both sides have great points
but tend to drive one another towards opposite extremes.  Some camps
are die hard dynamic language practitioners while others stick to
strongly typed code.

I will say that strongly typed languages have kind of won the battle
historically.  Most of the industry writes in C-styled languages
like C/C++, java, etc.  Lisp, still beloved by many, kind of lost.
Python, as many have shown, works wonderfully and frees up coders to
actually code, is still largely a wrapper on C.  For those who want
absolute performance, it's considered still an extra level of
indirection that's not worth the productivity gain.

I love python and its free-form style and the amount of progress you
can make using it.  Python excels at the rinse and repeat (compile,
run, fix) style of coding.  The few seconds you need to compile a
C-styled language and run, you're already fixing the bug in python.
You're not babied into writing object-oriented code ala java, but
can independently mix in functional aspects if you wish.  You can
just as easily go OO if you want as well.



On 6/17/11, Alex Hall<mehgcap@xxxxxxxxx>   wrote:
Programming is certainly a matter of preference in most situations.
I would probably give up if the only option were php, since I
really hate that language (no offense to anyone). Java is easy
enough, but I agree that it feels bulky at times. I like Python's
ease of use and readability, plus you can create executables with
it, something that is difficult in java. Some people don't like
that python is loosely typed, but I prefer saying:
name=raw_input("Enter your name: ") to, if memory serves:
name=new String();
in=new InputReader();
name=in.readLine();
or something along those lines.

On 6/17/11, Littlefield, Tyler<tyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>   wrote:
I've used both. I really like python because it comes on most *nix
systems. I also like Python because of it's flexability and
versatility.
Java is nice enough, but it feels big bulky and clunky to me. That
and they seem to have some serious naming convention issues.
Sometimes things are capitalized, sometimes they're not--.net makes
more sense.
On 6/17/2011 6:49 PM, John J. Boyer wrote:
There has been a lot of discussion on the list lately about
Python. Why is that?Personally i much prefer Java. Its syntx
makes a lot more sense and it is just as powerful, if not more. A
command-line build system like ant can take most of the hassle out
of
working with Java classes.
personally, I prefer this to Eclipse.

BrailleBlaster is written in Java. I am using openjdk-1.6,
Eclipse SWT and Apache Ant.

John

--

Take care,
Ty
my website:
http://tds-solutions.net
my blog:
http://tds-solutions.net/blog
skype: st8amnd127
My programs don't have bugs; they're randomly added features!

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Take care,
Ty
my website:
http://tds-solutions.net
my blog:
http://tds-solutions.net/blog
skype: st8amnd127
My programs don't have bugs; they're randomly added features!

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--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities

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