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144 lines
6.6 KiB
144 lines
6.6 KiB
11 months ago
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<html lang="en">
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<head>
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<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
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<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1, viewport-fit=cover">
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<title>Julio Biason .Me 4.3</title>
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<!-- CSS -->
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/print.css" media="print">
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</head>
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<body class=" ">
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<div class="sidebar">
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<div class="container sidebar-sticky">
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<div class="sidebar-about">
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me"><h1>Julio Biason .Me 4.3</h1></a>
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<p class="lead">Old school dev living in a 2.0 dev world</p>
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</div>
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<ul class="sidebar-nav">
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<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/">English</a></li>
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<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/pt">Português</a></li>
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<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/tags">Tags (EN)</a></li>
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<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/pt/tags">Tags (PT)</a></li>
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</ul>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div class="content container">
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<div class="post">
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<h1 class="post-title">Python Losing the 2nd Place on Loved Languages: A Thought</h1>
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<span class="post-date">
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2020-06-09
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/python/">#python</a>
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/typescript/">#typescript</a>
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/stackoverflow/">#stackoverflow</a>
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/survey/">#survey</a>
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</span>
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<p>On this year StackOverflow Survey, Python lost its 2nd place in the "Most
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Loved Languages" ranking to TypeScript. On our Python group, people started
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wondering why. And I just thought it would be nice to post my thoughts on
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the situation.</p>
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<span id="continue-reading"></span>
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<p>Before anything, I may have do make a disclaimer saying that I do love Python,
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and I think it is a great language 'cause it is very concise but also very
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expressive. I don't think any other language get close to Python in doing
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those points so well.</p>
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<p>Disclaimer done, let me explain why I think Python lost its second place in
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the hearts of developers.</p>
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<h2 id="types">Types</h2>
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<p>One of the first thoughts one can think when we talk about "losing a
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position" in any rank is "because it got worse". But I really don't think this
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is what happened here, and what actually happened is that TypeScript shown
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developers something better.</p>
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<p>TypeScript is aimed to JavaScript development, a zone where anything goes,
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types are very flexible and magical -- to the point what most of things
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actually produce a <a href="https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat">Wat</a>. By
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using types, making sure you're not adding a string to an array, a lot of
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problems suddenly disappear. It is no silver bullet, but it prevents a whole
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class of issues that would popup in production.</p>
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<p>So, in an environment that chaotic things happen, suddenly you have something
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that puts order back and you gotta love it for that. Surely, it's not just
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types that make TypeScript more loved than JavaScript, but it is partially
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why.</p>
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<p>(Just to add to this point: Rust is still the most loved language 5 years in a
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row, and it uses some pretty strong typing, close do Haskell, with added
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syntax closer to what most languages use.)</p>
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<p>I still believe that, in the long run, type hinting can fill the gap for
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Python to reach the proper position. I'd love to use it to add hinting in all
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functions and then have something that I could set the level of checking on
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different environments: make the application crash if the function was called
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with the wrong types on development environment; just log (logging or stderr)
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on staging; and do absolutely nothing on production. That would allow me to
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use the best of both worlds: Dynamic when developing, but static when testing.</p>
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<h2 id="python-2-is-dead">Python 2 is dead</h2>
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<p>One of the things that happened to Python in the beginning of this year, when
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the survey was done, was that Python 2 became unsupported. Surely, that
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doesn't mean any Python 2 installation would stop working, but it gave an
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extra jump to porting things to Python 3.</p>
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<p>And, even with all the backporting and improvements in Python 3, it was not a
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smooth sail. That change, that forced change, may have let some Python devs
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with some bitter taste about the language. No one wants to just fix changes in
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the language, when the way things work must still work, quirks and all.</p>
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<h2 id="hype">Hype</h2>
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<p>Python is not a hyped language anymore.</p>
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<p>Sure, it is still a reference for machine learning and related fields, but the
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once thriving environment of web dev was taking by the hype of other
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languages.</p>
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<p>Python is not the hot stuff on web dev anymore. And because it is not the hot
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stuff, people don't <em>want</em> the old stuff; the old stuff is not cool anymore,
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so they don't like it anymore.</p>
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<p>Related: Just because something has hype, it doesn't mean it is <em>better</em>; it
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just makes the non-hyped stuff "not better", even if there was no change at
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all in the latest.</p>
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<h2 id="side-point">Side-point</h2>
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<p>One point not raised by anyone in the group: Although Python lost its second
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place in the "Most Loved" ranking, it is still the most wanted language --
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meaning, it is the language most developers <em>want</em> to learn. If the general
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feeling was "Python sucks!", I pretty much doubt the want would still be
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representative -- and Python have a large lead compared to JavaScript.</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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