Vision for the first semester of 2016

Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d-announce digitalmars-d-announce at puremagic.com
Mon Jan 25 09:07:50 PST 2016


On Mon, 2016-01-25 at 21:31 +1300, Rikki Cattermole via Digitalmars-d-
announce wrote:
> 
[…]
> Nope just no.
> I am only talking about newbies here.
> They will pick distributions of Python that are all encompassing.
> 
> http://winpython.github.io/#overview
> When it comes to newbies who come into programming seeing from all
> of 
> their previous experience that things like GUI toolkit just comes
> with 
> the language they just don't care if it was provided "extra" by a 
> distribution or by the language itself. Only that they did exactly 0 
> beyond importing and using it.

I'm afraid this whole view on the Python world is an old and long gone
one. Even on Windows. Trust me on this I have been training people in
Python since 2006. I have seen the whole scene change. Dramatically.

Oh and by the way, noone actually uses the one graphics system that
comes as standard in Python. Everyone uses PyQt, wxPython, Phoenix,
Gtk, direct bindings to other graphics libraries.

Pip is now core to everyone, even beginners use of Python. PyPI  may
still have elements of crapness about it, but it is there, it is used,
from Day 1 by most people learning Python. 

> During my degree, the final programming class was Python.
> Everyone used WinPython except me. At the time pip didn't even work
> in 
> it. Yes you heard me correct.

True, but how long ago was that? Python distributes pip in the Windows
and OSX distributions. Package-based platforms tend to package it
themselves. In fact all the commands are just entries into the library.
Analogy: Dub is part of Phobos. If tehre is anything to add to Phobos
it has to be Dub. 

> When they had to use other code, they had no way or will to even try 
> what wasn't part of it and so in their eyes what they had downloaded
> was 
> Python. Because it really does appear to be Python.

Very true until four or five years ago. Now the whole situation is
changed. Yes people go first to the standard library, but now people
know to look in PyPI before writing their own.

> Especially with the IDE and QT being part of it...
> And right here is the problem. They expected and there it was.
> You will see this in every language. From Java to PHP.

Qt never has been and never will be a part of the Python standard
library.

Ah you agree with me: The Java folk have a huge library, some if which
is good, much of which is dross. But the real treasure of the Java
Platform is Bintray and Maven Central. How can anyone contemplate doing
Web stuff without Spring Hibernate, JavaEE, all of which are separate
libraries not in teh distribution. 

> […]
> 
> And I agree with you. As long as we have the bare bones in Phobos
> such 
> as windowing and image library we can actually fight over GUI
> toolkits.
> Instead of repeatedly doing the same code over and over poorly.

I am afraid this is just displacement reasoning. The problem with
graphics and D (other than GtkD, which is a very smooth operation) is
that too many people have too many different ideas and assume everyone
else will insist on doing their own thing. The problem is not Phobos
here, the problem is the people not wanting to collaborate to create
one or two things. Oh, that and resources. Whilst there is no money
swashing around the D community (compare the Java, C++, Rust, Go,
Python ones), there is little or no expectation of change. Given that
all activity is volunteer activity, then what is happening will not
change. And neither should it be forced to. On the other hand if a
consensus could happen…

-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder at ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel at winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder

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