Woah. I do both Python and JS, and guess what - there are a fair number of people who hate Python's significant whitespace. And to them, it's also a "hacky" language (with all kinds of __foo__ stuff). So, shitty-ness is in the eyes of the beholder.
> It's for fad chasers who have no idea how real servers manage to serve volume.
There are real world apps like Trello, which is on Node, and are scaling well. Get your facts right, or stop trolling.
But whitespace as debate topic over corner cases in JS language? really?
And also Trello is just launched and suddenly it scales off miles away? really?
Pagerank 6 == webscale?
Those facts are weird...
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Wadlers_Law
Arguing syntax is more often then not pretty absurd, unless you are arguing how the syntax actually changes semantics (like with S-expressions and overloaded parens).
Regardless of whether you like python or not, javascript pretty much sucks. Coffeescript helps a bit, but if you aren't running in browser, why hobble yourself like that?
As far as a reason why you might "hobble" yourself is because Javascript is great at asynchronous design. You should try checking it out for real instead of jumping on the opinion bandwagon.
> You even suggest Coffeescript which is big on making
> Javascript like an OOP language when it's really not.
How does the age of the argument impact its validity.
> you're only admitting that you're too lazy to learn how to program with a prototype-based language.
If you don't like Erlang you are just admitting you are too lazy to learn the actor model. See I'll just call you "lazy" it will validate my argument.
> because Javascript is great at asynchronous design.
Not disagreeing with you here, but it would help if you'd actually mention why. You said something about it being a prototype based language. Is that why you think it is great at asynchronous design?
Python and other non-browser languages are far more powerful and expressive, and — since you refer to Python 3 — willing to further improve.
if __name__ == "__main__":
For example, I think if you'd have to explain how to change the string representation of some kind of object, saying "just define the 'str' method and then call it, like 'something.str()'" is simpler than "define a '__str__' method -- don't worry about all the underscores -- but then don't call it directly; instead of that, use the global 'str' function".
I don't know if that extra indirection (i.e. calling 'str', which, in turn, calls '__str__'; or 'next', that calls '__next__' in Python 3) adds more value than the simplicity of not having that extra indirection in the first place.
Just about the only underscore that you can't really avoid is the constructor syntax, "def __init__()". Which I guess is tolerable.
Can you elaborate on that point? I thought that was the canonical way to do exactly that... http://docs.python.org/library/__main__.html. If there's an easier/less verbose method (pun not intended) I'd love to know about it.
It is this environment in which the idiomatic “conditional script” stanza causes a script to run
The conditional script stanza is optional, and intended to make a .py file function as both a script and a module (i.e. be importable). To me, it's unclear why you would want to do that. The only thing you have to do to avoid using __main__ is not require any file to be both a script and a module/library. Then just put any entry-point code at the top level of whatever script invokes your program. Unfortunately the __main__ stanza is pretty widely used though.
On the topic of modules, there is a wrinkle in requiring __init__.py to be present in any library subdirectory that you want to be part of the namespace. It would be nice to have a more intuitive way for that.
I especially love it when I'm first coding, cause I like to test as I go. That allows me to run it to see what works and what doesn't.
When I'm finished, I know that I can just plop that file into a directory and use it as a library afterward. The majority of the code that I write implements that, and I find it a godsend, personally.
if that is their only reason to claim JS is a better language, i wouldn't bother listening to their opinion too much.
I think that pquerna has some pretty good ideas about how "real servers" work, but leaving that be, you could actually explain what's wrong with the system, rather than attack the people.
Having some Erlang experience myself, I can find plenty not to like about node.js. However, the Erlang guys have fired round after round into their own feet to the point where even if it's inferior, node.js has probably already surpassed Erlang for many server tasks.
Here's some of what I think is wrong with Erlang:
http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/09/22/erlang
Several years ago, it was getting some "early hype noises", but sort of sputtered and bounced and never got off the runway.
If you look at who's building serious systems with Node.js, that statement doesn't hold up. CloudKick / the Rackspace monitoring team are hardly amateurs - neither are Joyent, LinkedIn, eBay or Yahoo.
Also see facebook and PHP. Just because Facebook uses PHP, it doesn't mean that PHP is a good language.
These people actively measured (using a spreadsheet at that) the various parameters of a programming language and settled the one that fits their requirements.
That spreadsheet is not "science" even though it has numbers in it. I can put higher numbers for Python and arrive at a different answer.
I completely agree with this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3366883 elsewhere in the thread.
And I'd like to see the results of your study where you have proven that "most people inexperienced enough to choose node are inexperienced enough to never need to scale". You should publish such a bombshell study.
But in truth, your fear is causing you to make nasty attacks and, well, just make shit up. Come on, just admit it, Sneak.
It's not fear of new, it's fear of broken. I encourage you to use whatever shiny stack-of-the-month you enjoy, as it basically amounts to my competitive advantage over people like that. I'll be over here using Apache and nginx and MySQL and python and perl and other languages that don't make me write abominations like '==!', same way I have forever. Best of luck to you.
True
>>> a = 1000; b = 1000; print (a is b)
True
>>> a = 1000
>>> b = 1000
>>> print (a is b)
False
Python has its quirks too. Most people learn them and get over it.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2858603/why-is-keyword-ha...
tl;dr; use "is" only with singetons (None etc)
if foo is None:
return
if bar is not None:
bar()No it's not. You're just making one hell of an assumption.
The argument could be made that they are both interpreters, but please, get it right - you are writing javascript, which is a pretty shitty language in which to develop apps these days. The only reason we use it is because it has near-universal browser support - and then only for UIs.
Also, not to parrot, but it's true - node is cancer. It's for fad chasers who have no idea how real servers manage to serve volume.
Fortunately, most people inexperienced enough to choose node are inexperienced enough to never need to scale, so it'll work out okay for them - for implementation-specific values of 'okay'. :)