[herriojr]

I totally agree that it comes down to who the code is written by. I've done both python and java, and in python I would go so far as to define interfaces as a form of documentation in my python code so people who use it know what I expect out of their classes which want to interact with my object. It doesn't require the class to explicitly implement the interface but they can if it makes sense (fairly similar to Zope Interfaces I guess). Unfortunately, I don't see this a lot in most python applications and you're left searching around through calls to figure out exactly what is required of the object being passed in. Look at a lot of popular libraries -- you are still left searching through code just to see what can possibly be returned because they aren't always the same type -- also, exceptions aren't part of the function or method definition, which means if you don't document your exceptions, I'm up shit creek. I think a lot of the problem around the python ecosystem, again, that I've seen, is people just don't follow best practices -- documentation, it's a core component if python development -- It's one of the arguments they use against static typing. Personally, I think python developers need to be much more strict about development practices than java developers. I think it's a lot easier to make bad python code than it is to make bad java code. The same goes for C, which I used to also do as well. To be a good C developer, you have to be very strict and structured (however, for somewhat different reasons). With great power comes great responsibility.

I've seen shit java code as well. A lot of bad java code usually revolves around things not being modular or not having some form of consistent development patterns or not breaking methods down into simpler sub-problems -- I think documentation isn't as important as it is in python for the fact that I know exactly what is being returned, what exceptions can be thrown, and what exactly needs to be passed in just by looking at a method. In terms of the business logic associated with the class, that still needs to be documented.

That said, I understand why python is generally used at startups -- it allows fast initial development where at startups, time is critical. Long term development really relies a lot on the teams ability to make structured decisions and organize their code, which is a difficult task in any language.