Moving from Python to Javascript (part 2: What I am hating)
If you missed the first part a little intro about me
If not, let’s start!
The Python Standard Library (Lack of)
FSM! How I miss the standard library. I really don’t understand why the concept has not been copied by every single language out there. One place were you have the most common things to do with your language. Nicely implemented. No installation of external libraries. And above all… no random searching among two thousand different ways of doing the same plus two hundred published implementations of doing the same.
The Zen of Python (Lack of)
With JS I kind of feel the opposite of the zen of python…
There should be one– and preferably only one –obvious way to do it.
The Zen of Python
I have the feeling that the JS ecosystem is soooo opposed to this. If for any problem you don’t have twenty completely different ways of doing something seems like the universe starts getting restless…
One of these days I’ll write another article called “The Agitation of JavaScript”.
Btw, if you haven’t seen the zen of python check it here. I consider it a great piece of advice for life almost.
Python Datetime library (Lack of)
Well, this is really painful. Python dates a beautiful to and easy to use. You have Date, which refer to a day. Time, which refers to a specific hour (minute, second…). Datetime, which is a moment in time (a specific Time of a specific Date optionally at a specific timezone). Finally you have Timedelta, which is a difference between moments and allows you easy arithmetic with dates. Actually Python Datetime is so beautiful that JS is doing what amounts to basically a copy.
Ten years of experience (Lack of)
I guess if I am being realistic (and as Ninefingers would say “you have to be realistic about these things”)… what I am missing the most is ten long years of going deeply into a language. Getting to experiment, know its ins and outs. Play with its metaprogramming, having a very big list of things that you just know by heart how to do.
Starting over is difficult but it can also be very rewarding I am learning things at a pace I had forgotten and that is at the same time daunting and amazing.
Final disclaimer
I will finish this article with another little disclaimer, as I said in the first one these will turn into a regular series as I catch up on more things I love and hate of this transition. In the hate section I will eventually also land some code examples and more concrete stuff but for now these big holes in my heart should suffice as a first approach to what I am hating more on this transition.