Guido van Rossum: Python and the Future of Programming – Lex Fridman Podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DVyjdw4t9I

by Steven-Clarke • 4 years ago

90 42 4 years ago

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Steven-Clarke• 4 years ago

Guido van Rossum is the creator of Python programming language.

skullone• 4 years ago

I think that's a pretty established fact.

MuffinFlavored• 4 years ago

anybody got a tl;dw?

yakubin• 4 years ago

I’ve watched half of it and there was nothing insightful, to be honest.

timonoko• 4 years ago

"I am not interested in these academic issues. I am just a mechanic making a tool." -- I remember he said this already 25 years go.

signaru• 4 years ago

I'd normally just listen to the podcast version, while doing something else. I finished through Lex's interview with John Carmack in several installments.

ivan_ah• 4 years ago

Some nice historical context for many of the recent developments (e.g. why py3.11 is 30% faster), and other general topics (e.g. why certain languages denote variables using dollar signs).

You can look at the topic-shortcuts on the video timeline to see if any of these topics are of interest to you.

bmitc6• 4 years ago

Does Python or van Rossum really have anything interesting to say on the future of programming? Python has libraries and lots of users and hype, and those are really its only outstanding "features". Python really does nothing interesting when I think of pushing the boundaries of programming.

williamstein• 4 years ago

And yet it is one of the top 10 most popular languages. There might be something to learn from the discipline and balance of not pushing the boundaries of programming too hard?

bmitc6• 4 years ago

I don't think that conclusion follows. Yes, it's popular. No, Python is not disciplined nor balanced. Popularity is really more about social dynamics than anything.

doix• 4 years ago

It's worth pointing out that Python is 30ish years old at this point.

It's "outstanding features" were creating a syntax that a lot of people can quickly grok (not just programmers) and the way they allowed for extensions to be written in C.

I believe it also popularized the concept of "there should be one obvious way of doing things", in stark contrast with Perl; "there's more than one way to skin a cat".

It's easy to look at this now and say that it's nothing interesting, because it already pushed the boundaries.

tcmb• 4 years ago

I believe it also popularized the concept of "there should be one obvious way of doing things"

It's one of the principles from the Zen of Python: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_of_Python#Principles

I agree with your comment, all of these taken together were a medium-sized revolution at the time. It's not for nothing that Python is the most popular language for teaching programming nowadays.

bmitc6• 4 years ago

Python doesn't really even follow that maxim itself. Also, even at the time of Python's creation, it ignored the influence of more disciplined languages (i.e., MLs, Smalltalks, Lisps, Schemes) and refused to adopt such influence over its lifetime. Guido van Rossum famously stated that `functools` is where he put things he didn't (doesn't) care about. I don't think that even now he understands functional-first programming.

All that being said, Python's age is irrelevant when discussing the future of programming.

lhuser123• 4 years ago

creating a syntax that a lot of people can quickly grok (not just programmers)

This. We tend to underestimate what it takes to create something easy to use.

valcron10002• 4 years ago

Haskell is also a 30 year old language and I think it has a lot more to say about the future of programming than Python

neilmock• 4 years ago

Python did introduce more love, kindness, and empathy into the world.

remram• 4 years ago

Did it? At this point what it's famous for is the 2-to-3 drama and the 20 competing packaging tools and standards.

sholladay• 4 years ago

Do you believe that AI / machine learning will play an increasingly important role in future technology? Because if so, Python is the go-to language for such work. Sure, some of that is due to human factors and not just language features, but Python makes AI and scientific computing easy and that work will influence Python’s development and vice versa.

Personally, as long as I have a good linter, I prefer JavaScript for general purpose programming but there are some areas where other languages just dominate.

Qem• 4 years ago

I think just by inertia we will end with future languages copying Python syntax and spreading its influence, just like lots of languages copied C syntax after it got popular.

marcelr• 4 years ago

As someone who tries to design & implements languages on my own time I’ve learned 1 really important thing.

Features don’t make a language good or important. Its the invisible broth the features live in that make them useful. The cohesive nature of python is something few languages can touch. The features in python though not always innovative by themselves work together like magic.

Most people stuck in the initial hype phase of FP often miss these things, but python is special & shouldn’t be discarded because its lack of hyped features of the day.

bmitc6• 4 years ago

The cohesive nature of python is something few languages can touch.

I am not sure I follow that at all. I have not known Python to be cohesive, like at all. Just look at how to do async/concurrency in Python. (a) you can't really, and (b) there are several ways to do with all sorts of quirks.

Most people stuck in the initial hype phase of FP often miss these things, but python is special & shouldn’t be discarded because its lack of hyped features of the day.

People saying this usually just equate functional programming with Haskell. I know van Rossum does because he has said so himself. Functional-first programming, on the other hand, is a totally different ballgame. There isn't a hype phase there because such languages, like F# sit, in about the sweetest spot you can for programming languages. Also, the features Python lacks were around for at least a decade before it. It's not like they're just now the soup of the day.

Lutzb• 4 years ago

Somewhere I read a quote that has stuck with me: Python is not the number one language in any aspect, but it is often the second best language.

This sums it up very nicely, I think. Without switching a language I can automate deployments, do machine learning tasks, implement ideas quickly, create backends, interface with most C libs easily and query apis.

jtode• 4 years ago

Yep - I had some issues on the last network I was responsible for which ended up being trivial to solve thanks to Python. In a world without it... there would be a language with the same features and a different name by now. It opens up the world to mediocre programmers.

cercatrova• 4 years ago

Would be interesting to see what he'd say about Nim, which is Python-like but compiled rather than interpreted and has a great static type system.

revskill2• 4 years ago

Yes, due to the "there is only one obvious way to do things", all Python programmers i know in my country don't know anything about function programming (they use global variables and mutation everywhere), no interface design, the code is almost unreadable (lenghthly mutated code everywhere), inheritance everywhere (there's no way to track back the parent call without debugging), no need for unit test, don't even say about Typing,...

I don't blame Python for such issues, i know it's human error. But why no such issues happen in other languages ?

More beginners into programming is a good thing. But the worst things happen when they don't know a better way to do things. Because "There's only one Python way to do things".

That's the reason i avoid Python at all cost to teach programming to newscomers.

roflyear6• 4 years ago

Of course you have these issues in other languages lol.

revskill2• 4 years ago

No, i've not seen such issues in other languages. Because in other languages, there's always better way to do things !

clarents• 4 years ago

I was surprised to hear that he uses GitHub Copilot. I'd assumed that with his understanding of the language that it would be easier/faster to just type what he wanted, but he said that 1) he's not a very good typist and so it can safe him some time and 2) Copilot can help fill in code for concepts that he's learned but would need to look up as a refresher.

Guido van Rossum: Python and the Future of Programming – Lex Fridman Podcast

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