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by kls 2079 days ago
First let me state that I do not hate Python, but I would suppose 2 items are on the top of the list for people that do. The first and the one that makes me dislike Python (not hate) is that Python enshrined into the language syntax that whitespace and structure count towards correctness. If it is not properly spaced according to the spec it does not work. Some people see this as an arbitrary constraint put on a developer and do not like it. Now I will give you others see it as a way to keep code readable, both arguments have their merits. Pretty much anything beyond noting how the two camps see it devolves into a holy war. Personally being a person that sees the beauty of LISP derived languages lack of syntax, I fall into the first camp and don't see the value of it for me.

I think the second issue, is it is fairly safe to say that the path from Python 2 to 3 was not well thought out and has been a disaster. A lot of people where burned by it, and it left a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths.

That being said, Python enjoys a huge userbase so I would not worry about the hate, it's just not the language of choice for some people and that is fine.

1 comments

I disagree with a lot of this. I feel these are minor minor complaints. You hear this kind of stuff for lisp too. For example, keeping track of parens is just as annoying as keeping track of indentation.

Also the migration from python 2 to 3 is actually the best migration ever. Breaking changes on a code that has a massive library around it. All code is migrated along with the libraries. I haven't heard of any migration done as successfully as python. It required movement of the language and the entire community to make it happen.

Most migrations refrain from breaking changes and instead they take the less risky route and make the language backwards compatible at the cost of being more bloated. See C++ 17 and C++ 20.

But despite this, yeah these are complaints that I've heard, but this is totally unrelated to the hate I see. Like parentheses in lisp is something to complain about but not something to hate lisp for.

The hate I believe is more egotistical than anything. One interviewer told me I could code in any language other than python because python makes things too simple. The hate is because they believe python programmers are stupider than normal programmers.

That being said my favorite language is not python. It's my least favorite language out of all the languages I know well but not a language I hate.