[Python-Dev] Type hints -- a mediocre programmer's reaction

[Paul Moore]

On 21 April 2015 at 17:55, Gregory P. Smith <greg at krypto.org> wrote:
> I view most of this thread as FUD. The fear is understandable, I'm trying to
> tell people to stop panicing.

I think (hope!) everyone is clear that what's being expressed in this
thread is honest (emotional) reactions. There's a negative connotation
to the term FUD that's uncomfortable in this context, although it's
understandable that the authors and supporters of the PEP feel
frustrated about the feedback, so merely using terms with negative
connotations is a pretty measured response, actually :-) We've got
people expressing fear and others telling them not to panic.
Realistically, just being told not to panic won't help. What will help
is feeling that the fears are understood and being considered, even if
ultimately the response is "we think it'll be alright - wait and see".
Most people contributing to this thread have probably not been
involved in the earlier discussions (I know I tuned out of the threads
on python-ideas) so are now reacting at short notice to what looks
like a big change. Things should calm down in due course, but "what
the heck is all this?" reactions are to be expected.

And honestly, the PEP is pretty difficult to read. That's probably the
nature of the subject (my eyes glaze over when reading about type
theory) but it doesn't help. When I read the PEP, after a few sections
I found myself losing focus because I kept thinking "but what about
X?" Result - I didn't manage to read the whole PEP and came away with
a feeling that all those things I thought of "couldn't be handled".
Not a positive reaction, unfortunately. That's the fault of the reader
rather than the PEP, but maybe the PEP could include a "common
concerns/FAQ" section, with discussions of the issues people are
worried about?

One final point. The overwhelming feeling I'm getting about the debate
is that the main response to people with concerns is "you don't have
to use it" and "it's optional". But that's not the point - we're
talking past each other to an extent. I (and I presume most others)
understand the fact that type hints are optional. We may or may not
use them ourselves (I'm not actually ruling out that I might end up
liking them!) But that's not the concern - what we're trying to
understand is how we, as a community of programmers, and an ecosystem
of interdependent codebases, deal with the possibility that there
could be two differing philosophies (to hint or not to hint) trying to
work together. Maybe it'll be a non-event, and we carry on as usual.
Maybe nobody will use types in public code for years, because we all
end up having to support 2.x whether we want to or not. Maybe we
shouldn't try to solve big social issues like that and we should just
trust in the fact that Python has a great community who *will* find a
way to work together. I don't know, but that's my real question, and
"it's optional" isn't really the response I'm looking for. (The
response I probably deserve is likely "don't take it all so
seriously", and it's probably fair. I apologise - it's been that sort
of day :-))

Paul