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How Much Python Do You Need To Know To Be Useful?
Nerval's Lobster writes: Since Python is a general-purpose language, it finds its way into a whole lot of different uses and industries. That means the industry in which you work has a way of determining what you actually need to know in terms of the language, as developer Jeff Cogswell explains in a new Dice piece. For example, if you're hired to write apps that interact with operating systems and monitor devices, you might not need to know how to use the Python modules for scientific and numerical programming. In a similar fashion, if you're hired to write Python code that interacts with a MySQL database, then you won't need to master how it works with CouchDB. The question is, how much do you need to know about Python's basics? Cogswell suggests there are three basic levels to learning Python: Learn the core language itself, such as the syntax and basic types (and the difference between Python 2 and Python 3); learn the commonly used modules, and familiarize yourself with other modules; learn the bigger picture of software development with Python, such as including Python in a build process, using the pip package manager, and so on. But is that enough?
The answer has to be 0 right?
I know C++. To me, anyone who knows python but not C++ is half useless. If you only know Java, you're 25% useless. And if you know only Visual Basic, you're 125% useless.
John
Holy Grail;
Dead Parrot;
Spam;
Ministry of Silly Walks;
and of course Spanish Inquisition.
So here's the link with the campaign tracking removed.
It looks like Dice is going to run a series of non-articles detailing what we should know, and have started to embed shit like "?CMPID=AF_SD_UP_JS_AV_OG_DNA_" this in their self-promoting URLs.
Click bait is click bait. Especially when done by sleazy assholes like Dice.
Fuck you, dicebags.
None, if you use Perl :)
I write code to monitor hardware devices, interact with SQL, and output to HTML pages. Perl does it all!
That said, I think learning the basics of any language is important no matter what type of software you will be coding.
Programming languages are like tools; use the best tool to get the job done.
Assembly is a wonderful language if you are writing low level system software; not too useful for SQL databases. C++ is great for system interaction and fast apps - but I probably wouldn't use it for front end UI. Javascript is great for web pages but not for device drivers.
Visual Basic is good for.. um.. nothing.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
We are the knights who say...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
How much of a summary do you need to read to know you should skip that one?
Tier 2 support might get by with being able to read and diagnose problems, them pass them on to dev. Junior programmers might need bare minimum of syntax and structure, the heavy lifting being taken care of by the architecture team: anything they can't handle goes to the senior developers. Architects and thought leaders may need to at least be familiar with every major library, and experts or even contributors to the ones critical to their systems in order to be useful in their roles. Improperly scoped questions are guaranteed to generate non-productive discussion as people are arguing from their own positions.
We've seen this same thing over and over with a different language. Does anyone care by now?
Next week:
How much Swift ... useful?
COBOL WAS LIKE THAT UP TO THE 1977 REVISION. FORTUNATELY I LEARNED COBOL-80.
Blah, blah, blah, COBOL is yelling.
The answer is no.
Guido van Rossum himself isn't qualified for an entry-level Python position.
That's why we need more H1-Bs!
I'd say the Parrot Sketch, Argument Clinic, and Silly Walks. Maybe add in Bruces and Spanish Inquisition, although no one expects that last one.
Um, what? No, I didn't read the article before responding. Why do you ask?
42
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The answer is that you need to know enough that you can hit the ground walking, if not running, unless you are entry level.
Start with 0s and 1s, and everything else derives from that. (except for functional languages, where you start with S and K)
I'd say "not dead yet", "the lumberjack song", "spam", "Torremolinos!", and a couple movies.
It is difficult to identify how much of [anything] one needs to know without knowing what the [job] responsibilities are.
I use Python for day-to-day automation of things I'd rather not do by hand. I'm not master, and most of what I write looks like c++ (not very pythonesque) - so someone who is exceptionally proficient with Python would cringe at what I produce.
However, what Python I do know allows me to be more productive throughout my day.
Just spend time with the language trying to do things that [job] requires, and you will discover how much Python you need to know to do [job].
An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
Python is a general-purpose language, which means it isn’t used for just one purpose such as Web development.
Oh, so that is what "general-purpose" means! I'm still not sure I understand, though. Can you give me some examples?
For example, if you’re hired to write apps that interact with operating systems and monitor devices, you might not need to know how to use the Python modules for scientific and numerical programming. In a similar fashion, if you’re hired to write Python code that interacts with a MySQL database, then you won’t need to master how it works with CouchDB.
Got it. So with Python, I don't need to spend time learning things that I don't need to know. Python does sound like quite a useful language!
In all seriousness, the article doesn't even have its facts straight. Consider:
Any Python newbie needs to know which types are immutable, which means an object of that type can’t be changed (answer: tuples and strings).
No, that's not the correct answer. Numeric types are also immutable, and that includes integers, floats, complex numbers, and Booleans. Frozen sets are immutable. (To be fair, frozen sets are a relatively obscure type unlikely to be used by beginners.) There are probably others I'm not thinking of off the top of my head.
this has to be some sort of bad joke, nobody is laughing at the horrendous quality of articles and the repeat nature of them.. christ.
"To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System"
Unless you're hiring someone for a specific development role (in which case you know exactly what you need) there's really no right answer to this question. But evaluating someone's ability to learn and do on their own is paramount in my experience. I'm a sysadmin and don't code much but I have written my own python scripts that interact with databases including scripts with classes and modules as well as multi-threaded scripts. It was what was necessary to fix the problem at hand. Just don't ask me to sit down and write it during the interview, I will likely need a day or two to buff the rust off my knowledge.
It always amazes me that so many folks reject something entirely because they don't like one aspect of it. Good luck finding a wife...
Comment: Ahh Dice (Score 4, Funny)
by Verloc on Thursday June 04, 2015 @10:08PM (#49844935) Attached to: How Much JavaScript Do You Need To Know For an Entry-Level Job?
Last week it was "How much C++ do you need to know for an entry level job"
next week it'll be "How much Python do you need for an entry level job"
Must be nice crowd sourcing your job requirements from Slashdot.
---
It was even Python. Amazing. I predict next week: Ruby.
And Cheese Shop.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I mean seriously, you need to at least know the Holy Grail to say that you know Python...
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Have you actually written code in Python and found the whitespace handling to be an issue? When I first heard about whitespace being significant I didn't like it, but I've never had a problem in practice.
My wife doesn't have a white space, she's asian.
brushes AC's shoulders....
It does not take much of any skill to be useful. There's always a certain amount of entry-level work that has value.
It takes god-like powers, however, to be competitive in today's job market, which I suspect might be the question actually intended.
I know C, C++, C#, Java, Javascript and Python. By far Python is my favorite language. Reading the comments I see many haters here bitching about the tabs. That is a very weak argument. Python's beauty comes in the elegant and readable code. Also there are three programming styles to solve any problem, OOP, procedural and functional. This allows a programmer to be creative and have a ton of fun programming. Those other verbose languages are tedious and boring, everyone's code looks the same because the IDE writes most of it for you.
That's what happens when a website's owner decides to use it for data mining instead of publishing actual articles anyone cares about.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
You have to know enough to know that it makes whitespace significant. That's useful, because it should lead you to choose another scripting language, one which is less retarded.
As a python guy, I lol'd the first time I had to maintain some ruby and found that the rubocop linter makes it more persnickety about whitespace than python is.
C'mon people, I waited all day and I still have to post this for you?
https://xkcd.com/353/
which all of course ends in:
https://xkcd.com/521/ (mouseover text)
Set your editor to 4 hard spaces on tabs just like the PEP8 standard suggests. Problem solved.
Today I learned you need to know the primitives and syntax, but only the modules you actually plan to use. I've been doing programming wrong all this time.
I heard a similar rationale regarding a baby and its bathwater. At first, the bathwater was blamed for the unfortunate zealous disposal of the baby. But when that explanation didn't fly, the purported ugliness of the baby was offered as justification. However, after hearing both explanations, the jury remained unconvinced.
It's not the language nearly as much as it's more general software development skills such as algorithms, data structures, algorithmic complexity, and design patterns. It's really easy to transition between languages and shore up your own holes in knowledge by keeping links to reference resources (or books).
The general practice of knowing how to translate an idea into a workable piece of code is far, far more important. The individual language is just the medium through which you're working. Different languages have somewhat different toolboxes (with a lot of overlap), but overall the general concepts are the same. Focus on the software design fundamentals. You can pick up a new computer language within a few weeks whenever you need to.
I didn't read the article, but the summary makes it sound like it would have been a waste of time anyway:
How Much Python Do You Need To Know To Be Useful?
...
Cogswell suggests there are three basic levels to learning Python: Learn the core language itself, such as the syntax and basic types (and the difference between Python 2 and Python 3); learn the commonly used modules, and familiarize yourself with other modules; learn the bigger picture of software development with Python, such as including Python in a build process, using the pip package manager, and so on.
Isn't that the case with any language? Dice could have attracted even more people with this:
How Much of a Programming Language Do You Need To Know To Be Useful?
...
Cogswell suggests there are three basic levels to learning your next programming language: Learn the core language itself, such as the syntax and basic types (and the difference between the current and last major versions); learn the commonly used modules, and familiarize yourself with other modules; learn the bigger picture of software development with the language, such as including it in a build process, using the package manager, and so on.
Tables use white space to convey structure. Do you think they are retarded?
Paragraphs usually have a first line with extra white space. Is this retarded?
Centering titles implies using lots of white space. Is this retarded?
Operas have white spaces between arias. Supposedly this is also retarded, isn't it?
> You have to know enough to know that it makes whitespace significant. That's useful, because it should lead you to choose another scripting language, one which is less retarded.
You used white spaces in your post. Why? Are they significant or is your post retarded?
[Meta: Can we filter out registered posts -- obviously without being registered?]
Nothing is a better giveaway of a terrible programmer than strong opinions for or against a particular language.
My hatred of JavaScript is one of my biggest weaknesses. But Python? What'd she ever do to you?
I can't think of much of a practical use for most of python, but "always look on the bright side of life" was a song with a wise undertone.
I've written Python for years and have never used any special editor. The one problem I've had is when commenting out several lines of Python code -- you need to add a # character to the beginning of each line. It's a minor inconvenience. But Python could use a good multiline comment mechanism. I had the same problem in Perl, which uses curly braces, so it isn't really an indentation issue at all.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Does anyone have a greasemonkey/tampermonkey script that hides dice spam authored by this twat?
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Please excuse this off-topic queue-jumping reply to your comment, but there are times when someone makes a very insightful observation that really, really should have gone in a more prominent position.
Sneak preview; three virtually identical questions of the form "How Much [language x] Should You Know For an Entry-Level [language x] Job?" going to the Dice website and "submitted" by the same Slashdot employee in just over two weeks.
Bonus; OP linked above correctly predicted this week's story and even got the language right.
That's almost funny, except that it isn't. Admittedly, Slashdot has been "going down the tubes" almost since it launched, but this is particularly crap.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
What kind of idiot writes code in an environment that isn't language / syntax aware in 2015?
Seriously? You are arguing against change adamantly, and citing pig-headedness on the Python developers part? Now that is hilarious.
Since it isn't even remotely irritating to myself and (likely) hundreds of thousand of others it wasn't a bad call for us. If it was a "bad call" for you, I suggest you can chalk that up to your pig-headedness combined with your lack of understanding the important of using decent code development tools.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I've written Python for years and have never used any special editor. The one problem I've had is when commenting out several lines of Python code -- you need to add a # character to the beginning of each line. It's a minor inconvenience.
What about using the """ triple-quote format? That works for multi-line comments, but may be "special" in that it's interpreted by other tools.
How would it destroy your code? If you don't have access to the .vimrc or other config, then simply use the space bar instead of tab.
Use triple quotes to temporarily comment out code.
Would you rather I complain about the compatibility problems between minor versions? It's abysmal performance? Or do I need to expound on the original point and poke fun at how anonymous functions are crippled because of the absurd whitespace rules, point out how they often hurt readability, explain how they lead to bugs that are literally invisible, or about how they make refactoring code difficult?
The whitespace rules are reason enough to avoid learning it, just as it's serious compatibility issues are reason enough to avoid using it in any professional context. Why bother with further explanation? It's far more economical to move on to any one of countless alternatives far more suitable for any given application.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Esc
Ctrl + v
Down Arrow (Repeat N times)
Shift + I
Shift + 3 <- Depends on keyboard Layout
Esc
(wait 2 seconds)
13,000,000,000 BC. Spacetime comes to existence and expands rapidly, setting into motion the chain of events that'll eventually lead to the formation of Earth, rise of life and the existence of Slashdot, thus ruining it forever.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I actually think that's kind of genius. It makes everybody's code more legible. I'm not that much of a programmer, mostly dealing with interpreted scripting languages like TCL, Bash, and Powershell, and I can't tell you how many times I've hated reading somebody else's script because they didn't indent for shit, and they put their curly braces in such weird places that it was hard to tell what was encapsulated inside of what. And then they somehow expect somebody else to be able to debug it later.
Netcraft confirms it: Slashdot is dead.
Define useful
I've been reading Slashdot since it was published on stone tablets, and... OK, it sucked then, too.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I believe that quality is called cognitive dissonance. Just because you don't understand the nature of something doesn't mean you should a knee jerk reaction to it.
*should have had* - sorry. Also, I am not completely sure if "knee jerk" should be hyphenated.
We are the knights who say...
"PING!"
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Knights. Huh. Not for me. I'm just a
shrubber
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I would turn the question around. Lots of people end up in programming environments, but not all of them are temperamentally suited to be a software engineer. So, say you are interviewing someone and they have 'Python experience'. Ask how long they have been exposed to Python. One day? Then they ought to be able to talk for 10 minutes about the syntax. Six months? They ought to be familiar with the core modules. Someone of any level of experience ought to be interested in the development of the language they are using. People can be exposed to a language for a long time without absorbing the lessons it has to teach.
I have written significant Python code used and maintained in a cross-platform environment by multiple people. I was absolutely fine with the whitespace requirement until that point, but tabs and spaces became mixed and line endings became confused and perfectly valid-looking Python suddenly stopped working correctly.
Now, those are all solvable problems, and we did actually solve them in various ways, but Python's the only language where the usually invisible difference between tabs and spaces can actually make your code do different things. Python requires a non-Python safety net to get you to write predictable code in a heterogeneous text editing environment. That's not a good thing, even if it can be mitigated.
That is odd. Over 20y in development and QA and I have not seen a language that has not been abused by morons to the point one had to agree with you. Sometimes there is a significant amount of skill required to show that one cannot code (C++ is known for that). Sometimes it is easy - java is like that.
At the same time I have seen amazingly well written code in all of the languages I have worked with.
Even this annoying indentation can be argued to be a good thing especially because there is whole bunch of idiots out there that think that putting a code into readable structures is evil and against nature.
None ... still compatible with Python3.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
...as knowing a language, just knowing a particular task of programming. You can be very knowledgeable and experienced in a language and still not be qualified for the job. And it is all an indication of the coming complexity collapse, not just in software, but in all things.
E Proelio Veritas.
Have you actually written code in Python and found the whitespace handling to be an issue?
I only use python out of necessity, never out of choice, so I'm probably not a representative voice but:
You cannot comment out an if statement so that the code that was conditional is always executed while debugging. You are forced to either comment out the if and re-indent the conditional code or add brackets and or true. Both lead to higher potential risks when undoing the change later.
Python requires indenting but does not require a consistent level or style of indenting. Every time you start a new indent it can be indented a different number of spaces and/or tabs provided only that it's more than the previous line. It is, however, EXTREMELY dangerous to try to reindent such files because the only requirement is that the indent matches a "valid" line above the current line. If there is a mixture of tabs and spaces in the file then this doesn't have to be the line that it visually matches up with.
Automatically reindenting a C++ program is likely to uncover places where the indenting was misleading. It will never[1] lead to a non compiling program being able to compile or a change in semantics. Automatically reindenting a python program is, at best, going to leave the code unchanged. It can render a non-syntatically correct program valid or change the meaning of a program.
[1] there are some obscure corner cases with line continuation characters that are sensitive to there being no or some whitespace at the start of the continuation line.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
Indeed. It's been shown by tracking eye movements, that while beginners laboriously pore over code to determine what it does, the eyes of the experienced coder mostly flick over the indent structure of the code, and only dip into the lines when they need to refer to detail.
This is why experienced coders feel so strongly about consistent indenting - not because they are all neat-freaks, but because it directly impacts their ability to comprehend the code. Bad indenting is like scratching the needle on a beautiful piece of music, or shouting random words, or *shudder* listening to sales people describe requirements.
Python forces you to indent consistently. If only Guido / PEP-8 hadn't chosen the wrong indent sequence as the preferred standard (4 spaces instead of a tab) ;-)
Real programming is done in actual binary with a small magnet to manual flip the bits into ones and zeros on the disk itself. If you do not or can not do that then you should be restricted to the markup languages.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It should have been hyphenated. However, we would have just joked about how you put the hyphen in the wrong spot and that it should be in between jerk and reaction.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
How many of those are a programming language (or scripting language or non-compiled language if you prefer)?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Of course indenting is important. But it should have remained an orthogonal issue to the choice of block delimiters. By not using curly braces, unlike everything else (ok, matlab is different, and lua is different etc etc... but curly braces are the majority), I have additional unnecessary cognitive load when running around the C->Python->Javascript->Go racetrack like I do at work.
I hate cognitive load. It makes me irritable.
If I only wrote code in python, or like a prior poster, had only experience of badly written shell scripts, I might not mind so much. But as it is, it drives me up the wall.
And since I'm on slashdot moaning about weird language choices, what's with Go's 'Capital letters means public' thing. Grrrrr.
Yes, I would rather you complain about those. They sound legitimate.
If I were making a language, I would strongly consider making whitespace work the way Python does (to enforce readable indenting standards), with the addition that mixing tabs and spaces is a syntax error, so you don't get those literally invisible bugs. I might even consider having both curly braces and meaningful whitespace: the level of indentation would act as a checksum on the correct number of open curly braces.
This is because bad indenting (aka bad use of whitespace) is also a common source of hard-to-find bugs. The famous "goto fail" bug is an example of a bug that is fairly common, and is actually resolved by meaningful whitespace. I imagine it was probably introduced from a merge conflict resolution, and then overlooked because it doesn't jump out at you unless you're looking for it. And also because the indentation in that file is a mess that only looks right if you set tabs to equal exactly four spaces, eliminating the one legitimate minor advantage of tabs over spaces. I mean, look at this: http://opensource.apple.com/so...
I'd also genuinely like to learn more about how anonymous functions are crippled by whitespace.
Now that is hilarious.
I'm happy to have entertained you.
Of course I normally use a syntax-aware editor, but the fact is that you don't always have one to hand, and it seems that Python goes out of its way to make this a problem for you. If this makes me an idiot, then so be it.
Please complain about as many things as possible. In my experience, people universally enjoy hearing complaints. :-)
But seriously, I literally have not had any of the problems you complain about. I don't remember the whitespace thing (which I happen to like) to have ever caused me a problem. If anything, it prevented problems compared to the common alternative.
Regarding compatibility among minor versions, Python has always been famously committed to a very high level of compatibility between minor versions, which I have always used interchangeably. (Think about it: you don't get and retain the status of being one of just a very few primary scripting languages without that.)
That said, you're right, though about "it's" [sic] slowness. So, what part of "scripting language" don't you understand...? Specifically, it really isn't possible to gain the advantages of dynamic typing without losing the advantage of speed. That's why those of us who use Python for part of our work use a compiled language for the other part of our work. (I use both C and C++ regularly.) You might as well complain that a screwdriver doesn't pound in nails very well. True enough, but a hammer really isn't that useful for turning screws, either...
what's with Go's 'Capital letters means public' thing. Grrrrr.
So you don't have to type the word public and can just Go straight to coding the function.
I'd also genuinely like to learn more about how anonymous functions are crippled by whitespace.
I'll let Guido answer that.
Of course, he sees nothing wrong with the absurd constraints imposed on lambdas by his ridiculous white space rules:
In my mind, the inability of lambda to contain a print statement or a while-loop etc. is only a minor flaw;
Required reading for internet skeptics
So, what part of "scripting language" don't you understand...?
Nothing, or everything, depending on who you ask. There's no real definition. Today, anything with dynamic typing gets called a "scripting language". Years ago, it just meant any language used in some host environment (a word processor, web browser, game, etc.) In a few years, I'm sure it'll be something different. Some people already use it as a pejorative for languages they don't personally like.
, Python has always been famously committed to a very high level of compatibility between minor versions,
A google search will confirm a host of issues with compatibility between 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6. That last one is interesting, as it was hailed as a version that was capable of running "most" python 2 code.
You'll also find popular projects that require a specific version of python as newer versions are incompatible. It's not uncommon to find multiple versions of python on a single system to address this. I can pass along specific examples if you'd like.
It's more than 20 years old at this point. You'd think that we'd see some stability.
Required reading for internet skeptics
It is impossible for me to take you seriously after a comment like that. If you can't figure out a way to guarantee that you have the editor of your choice at your disposal you are hopeless. Seriously.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Look - I know this is the internet and everything - and being intolerably rude is apparently the norm. But you should really consider the way in which you speak to people about whom you know nothing but a few sentences written in an online form.
Seriously.
It's great that you have control over every computer that you ever do work on - including installing whatever your editor-of-choice is - but not everyone has that luxury. The fact remains that Python's choice of whitespace instead of delimiting characters causes a problem for me. That this fact makes it impossible for you to take me seriously is ok - you just don't need to be a dick about it.
It's not like it was Forth or something else that takes a mindset change.
Give it up, chump.
Unable to import symbol hotchick: insufficient funds
Unable to import symbol hotchick: private member violation
Unable to import symbol hotchick: class boundary exceeded
Unable to import symbol hotchick: out of memory
Unable to import symbol hotchick: no operating system
Unable to import symbol hotchick: indentation error
Unable to import symbol hotchick: general failure
Unable to spawn child process: failure