[cmccabe]

The problem is in the type system. Dynamic typing makes it difficult to ever change APIs, because a change could break anything that depends on them. pylint and other such tools help a little bit, but they can only do so much when the language doesn't support static typing.

Another Python feature that makes upgrades hard is monkeypatching, where one piece of code can inject arbitrary code into another piece of code. In many dynamic languages, this is often used to patch the behavior of core classes like String. I don't know how common this is in Python, but I've definitely seen it before. By erasing the distinction between interface and implementation, this makes it difficult to ever change them implementation of anything.

People say that writing more and more unit tests will solve these problems. But guess what? The more unit tests you have of an API, the more unit tests you have to change when that API changes. Unit tests are good and should be written in any language, but they are hardly a substitute for static typing.

The end result of all of this is that dynamically typed languages usually follow a trajectory where there's an initial burst of enthusiasm about some cool syntax, followed by a lot of code being written, and then a gradual descent into a compatibility tarpit, where nothing can be changed because of fear of breaking working code. Only additions can be made, and the language gradually grows uglier and uglier. Dynamically typed languages approximate Bourne shell more and more as time goes on-- a dozen slightly incompatible implementations, ancient quirks that bite hard on newcomers, and a resignation that this is the "best it gets."

Sometimes there's a burst of irrational hope towards the end of a language's lifetime. Perl 6 and Python 3 are good example of this. Developers go into their happy place and forget about the big bad compatibility bear that's been chasing them. But it's just a fantasy-- dynamic languages can't escape from the tarpit in the end, and nobody adopts the new thing.

[alberich]

Java is statically typed and it is ugly as hell. It also breaks stuff between major versions.

Implying that a language is doomed to be ugly or hard to evolve because it doesn't use static types is not a logical conclusion.

Besides, Perl 6 is not Perl 5 continued, and never pretended to be. Perl 5 continues to evolve (e.g. Moose) and is not getting uglier. You could argue that it was already ugly when it was created, but it is not growing uglier.

[ak217]

Monkey patching is a clear violation of the API contract and is expected to break when versions change.

It's really not clear to me how your claims can be backed up. Lack of static typing is a fundamental feature of Python, it's part of the design philosophy. The majority of the language functionality is built in the standard library, where modules and interfaces can be swapped out and deprecated easily. Modules in pypi can have different codebases for different interpreter versions, and programs/projects can declare their dependencies using virtualenv; multiple Python interpreter versions can coexist on the same system. Your claim boils down to saying that static typing allows languages to develop faster and cut down maintenance costs, but I don't think you can conclusively demonstrate either point.

[cmccabe]

virtualenv is a symptom of the disease, not the cure. People get stuff working with a specific version of all the libraries and of Python, and then they forget about upgrading. And why should they upgrade? It will just break their code in mysterious ways. It would be different if the compiler could tell them about changes in type signatures, but it can't.

In the real world, monkeypatching happens. And you may not always know that your libraries or framework are doing it, either. Ruby on Rails does extensive monkeypatching, even of core classes such as String. I don't think you can patch str in CPython due to implementation issues, but that's not the point.

[slurgfest]

Ruby's culture is FAR more tolerant of monkeypatching than Python's culture - monkeypatching str, for example, just isn't a thing you would do. So what constitutes 'the real world' differs between the two.

[duskwuff]

> Another Python feature that makes upgrades hard is monkeypatching

You can't alter core classes (like str) in Python, and patching classes from other modules is considered a really weird, rare, bad practice.

[dagw]

Another Python feature that makes upgrades hard is monkeypatching

Although possible, it's my understanding that monkey patching is greatly frowner upon in the python community. I've been programming python on and off for a decade and can only think one time when I've monkey patched something, and I felt really bad about it. The only library that I know of that uses monkey patching is gevent, and it doesn't do it by default but only if you've explicitly told it to.