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Comment by pjmlp | Hacker News Reader

Because there is this urban myth that other languages aren't as complex, yet drop someone with a beginners loved language like Python 3.8 and they will have fun throughout the almost 2000 pages of documentation plus all major libraries in use across the ecosystem, and Python implementations.

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> yet drop someone with a beginners loved language like Python 3.8 and they will have fun throughout the almost 2000 pages of documentation plus all major libraries in use across the ecosystem, and Python implementations.

I would agree that the Python ecosystem is as complex as the C++ language.

I would not agree that the Python language is as complex as the C++ language, or that they Python ecosystem is as complex as the C++ ecosystem.

I will agree also that the Python language has very comprehensive first-party tutorial and reference documentation, but that doesn't add to the complexity.

Then it is time to learn some clever use of Python metaprogramming, metaclasses, how slots interact with old style attributes, old and new style classes, clever tricks with magical methods, stackless vs regular Python, multiple ways to format strings, arithmetic semantic changes,...

> old style attributes, old and new style classes

pretty sure that's only a factor if you need to deal with Python 2

I expect any Developer X, to comfortably understand a random codebase of language X.

I was aware of all those things when I made the original statement, thank you.

I think the two major c++ documentation websites are far better than the official Python documentation. They have more examples, the different variants are clear across which version of the language you are using, and I never need to go elsewhere. Python documentation is typically lacking many of the examples you'd really want, and you need to go elsewhere to find those.

Are you seriously arguing Python has about the same complexity as C++?

An extensive standard library is not the same at all as an large base language size. Adding a million books to a language doesn't make it more complex, adding a million words and verb conjugations does.

Yes I am, Python even changes stuff between minor releases.

Also I think many aren't aware how powerful Python actually is.

Totally agree. Look at something like asyncio and how many things have been improved or deprecated since 3.5. it makes it really hard to keep up. Sure, if you want to stick to basic python it's certainly easier to learn than C++, but the language as a whole isn't much simpler

I have spent quite a bit of time invstigating the metaprogramming capabilities of python and I have barely scratched the surface. And I hear they have added a fully parametric type system recently...

It's parametric, sure.

It's not "full" in that it can't express the types of many language features well enough that inference works. Something like the attrs package needs to use a kludge[1] to communicate types back to a validator.

https://github.com/python-attrs/attrs/blob/4f74fbaca3cc12911...

Other languages are definitely less complex — you generally don’t see language lawyering for Python or Java — but I think that there are many useful features in C++14/17/20 as well. Writing only C++11 will lead to suboptimal code.

> you generally don’t see language lawyering for Python or Java

But my experience for instance when having to do stuff in C#, Java or Python is that when I'm looking for advice on the internet, stackoverflow, etc etc... 80% is reaaalllly bad, in the sense that if it were C++ everybody would be screaming "wtf don't do that this is insane" and write 12 blog posts and 40 twitter flamewars about why this is a bad idea and you should never ever do this... but apparently the "tolerance to bad code" is much higher in other communities.

One way Herb Sutter looks at it is — most advanced programmers could probably write a Python or a Java interpreter. It might take them a few years, and they might struggle with some complex language features like metaclasses, reflection, or the type system, but the language spec is understandable enough that it’s feasible.

But give them five years and they would generally not be able to write a C++ compiler.

This is a side effect of those languages being much more accessible to beginners and more widely used than C++.

You won't find that as much for for Haskell or Clojure or Brainfuck but that doesn't make them better languages or less tolerant to bad code.

Being more accessible means being usable by less trained/skilled developers, which makes online communities less trained/skilled on average. I wouldn't use that as an argument to prefer to use worse tools and their built-in 'you must be this tall the ride' nature.

The problem is not just complexity, but complexity with tons of pitfalls.

There are plenty of opportunities for a Python Puzzles quiz.

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