[sureglymop]

Mojo is cool but I just don't understand the python backwards compat thing. They're holding themselves back with that.

All the flaws I can think of in Kotlin are due to the Java compatibility. They could've made it work here by being more explicit but the way it currently works seems doomed.

[geodel]

> All the flaws I can think of in Kotlin are due to the Java compatibility.

All the use of Kotlin in industry are due to Java compatibility. Else there would be ~0% marketshare of Kotlin.

[loglog]

Mojo is NOT Python compatible (although they initially wanted it to be). So they got all downsides without the upsides.

[fiedzia]

They claim you can easily mix them so there is some degree of compatibility.

[Conscat]

Every reasonable language has a Python interop story. All it takes is C FFI. But what Mojo promised early on was the eventuality of compiling a large amount of Python code if not entire wheels as Mojo.

[melodyogonna]

I don't recall they promised that. They promised it'll be a superset, but Mojo introduces new keyword. Mojo could support all Python features today exactly as they're supported in Python and you wouldn't still be able to copy Python code into Mojo and compile it

[boxed]

"All downsides"? What do you mean?

[jasonjmcghee]

There is unfortunately likely a lot of truth to this. I like Kotlin, but, anecdotally, I've only ever chosen it due to needing JVM

[davidatbu]

I'm pretty sure that they have decided that backwards-compat is not the best path for Mojo. Matter of fact, the following is the _last_ item on the roadmap on the home page:

> Supporting more of Python's dynamic features like classes, inheritance, and untyped variables to maximize compatibility with Python code.

What's more, note how it says "to maximize compatibility" not "to achieve full compatibility."

[pjmlp]

Same story with C and Objective-C, C and C++, JavaScript and TypeScript, Java and Scala, Java and Clojure,.....

Yes the underlying platform they based their compatibility on, is the reason they got some design flaws, some more than other.

However that compatibility is the reason they won wide adoption in first place.

[boxed]

> Mojo is cool but I just don't understand the python backwards compat thing. They're holding themselves back with that.

In reality I think they've dropped that pretty hard. Literally you can't even get the length of a string with `len(s)` in the latest release. They also removed negative indexing, which I find baffling and frustrating. The roadmap does say they don't intend to have any "syntax sugar" until later in the implementation, but negative indexing is such a core part of what makes Python so much nicer to work with compared to say C++...

[tasuki]

They coulda made it Scala!