The main reason I have stayed away from Python. packaging is a mess!

cedws · on Jan 15, 2023

And one of the reasons I moved away from it! My blog post on the subject was posted here and it was very unpopular despite having similar points and also making comparisons with Node.

There's nothing special about Python that makes it worth enduring this pain. We have other languages with a better developer UX.

abraxas · on Jan 17, 2023

Well, not for ML we don't. Python killed it all off. If you plan to work on core algorithms or finetuning existing models there is nowhere to run.

EdwardDiego · on Jan 15, 2023

I'd be keen to read your blog post if you have a link?

cedws · on Jan 16, 2023

https://cedwards.xyz/breaking-up-with-python/

Bear in mind this was not written for an audience, let alone a HN audience.

EdwardDiego · on Jan 16, 2023

Thanks, appreciate the link, I'll be back to yell at you shortly :D

...and having read it, the only thing I'd yell is that "I AGREE WITH ALL YOUR PAIN POINTS". Especially around documentation and package management.

I do like type annotations for improving the reading experience of Python codebases, even if you're not using a type checker, but trying to get people to use them consistently for new code in an org that has a large pre-existing codebase involves either a lot of carrots, or some CI based sticks, and I don't quite have the organisational influence to just drop that on people... ...yet.