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  3. Python needs an actual default function

Python needs an actual default function

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  • A [email protected]

    procedural programming is more akin to that, but python has far to many oop concepts to be considered procedural imo

    F This user is from outside of this forum
    F This user is from outside of this forum
    [email protected]
    wrote on last edited by [email protected]
    #93

    Procedural and OOP aren't mutually exclusive terms. Most OOP programs are ultimately procedural in nature. Often, the only difference is that the first argument to the function is to the left the function name and separated by a dot.

    A 1 Reply Last reply
    1
    • arschflugkoerper@feddit.orgA [email protected]

      What kind of psychopath would put the code in the if block.

      A This user is from outside of this forum
      A This user is from outside of this forum
      [email protected]
      wrote on last edited by
      #94

      you can, no one stopping you

      1 Reply Last reply
      1
      • grrgyle@slrpnk.netG [email protected]

        I remember how weird this looked the first time I saw it and while I may now understand it, it still looks jank af

        A This user is from outside of this forum
        A This user is from outside of this forum
        [email protected]
        wrote on last edited by
        #95

        I still wonder why.

        unless it's for something that you want to work as an importable module and a standalone tool, then why do you need that?

        grrgyle@slrpnk.netG N A 3 Replies Last reply
        2
        • F [email protected]

          Procedural and OOP aren't mutually exclusive terms. Most OOP programs are ultimately procedural in nature. Often, the only difference is that the first argument to the function is to the left the function name and separated by a dot.

          A This user is from outside of this forum
          A This user is from outside of this forum
          [email protected]
          wrote on last edited by
          #96

          fair, I just think it's misleading to call python procedural, but it lines up with what the commenter above was describing and searching for the term for

          F 1 Reply Last reply
          1
          • hiddenlayer555@lemmy.mlH [email protected]

            Also, do y'all call main() in the if block or do you just put the code you want to run in the if block?

            J This user is from outside of this forum
            J This user is from outside of this forum
            [email protected]
            wrote on last edited by
            #97

            I would put my code in a def main(), so that the local names don't escape into the module scope:

            if __name__ == '__main__':
                def main():
                    print('/s')
                main()
            

            (I didn't see this one yet here.)

            Y 1 Reply Last reply
            5
            • A [email protected]

              fair, I just think it's misleading to call python procedural, but it lines up with what the commenter above was describing and searching for the term for

              F This user is from outside of this forum
              F This user is from outside of this forum
              [email protected]
              wrote on last edited by
              #98

              I'd say the term "procedural" itself is an issue. Pretty much any language can be done that way if you choose. IIRC, the creator of Clojure wanted Java to work more that way, and he did it by having a single class full of functions. It's not a natural way to write Java, and that's why he invented Clojure.

              1 Reply Last reply
              1
              • J [email protected]

                I would put my code in a def main(), so that the local names don't escape into the module scope:

                if __name__ == '__main__':
                    def main():
                        print('/s')
                    main()
                

                (I didn't see this one yet here.)

                Y This user is from outside of this forum
                Y This user is from outside of this forum
                [email protected]
                wrote on last edited by
                #99

                I'm a little new to Python standards. Is this better or worse than putting the def main(): outside the if statement (but calling main() inside it)

                J 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • A [email protected]

                  I still wonder why.

                  unless it's for something that you want to work as an importable module and a standalone tool, then why do you need that?

                  grrgyle@slrpnk.netG This user is from outside of this forum
                  grrgyle@slrpnk.netG This user is from outside of this forum
                  [email protected]
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #100

                  Oh that is a good point actually. It's been a while since I have done any serious Python, so I'm not sure why you couldn't just use convention instead of this conditional.

                  For my part, if a Python script is meant to be executed, then I'll give it a shebang, drop the .py, and simply mark it as executable in the filesystem. 🤷‍♂️

                  1 Reply Last reply
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                  • A [email protected]

                    I still wonder why.

                    unless it's for something that you want to work as an importable module and a standalone tool, then why do you need that?

                    N This user is from outside of this forum
                    N This user is from outside of this forum
                    [email protected]
                    wrote on last edited by [email protected]
                    #101

                    This is exactly why the conditional is used. It allows the script to function both as a standalone application and a library.

                    ETA: Probably would make sense to just treat it as default behavior in the interpreter and only require the conditional to overwrite in cases where main is not the main function and/or pre-processing is needed.

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • slacktoid@lemmy.mlS [email protected]

                      Can you elaborate on this blood magic?

                      B This user is from outside of this forum
                      B This user is from outside of this forum
                      [email protected]
                      wrote on last edited by [email protected]
                      #102

                      It simply swaps some things around to make things more confusing, then goes into an infinite loop (whether or not you import or execute it standalone). it's no different than just including in the global scope:

                      while True:
                          pass
                      

                      I was kinda lazy with the fuckery, tbh. I could have gotten much more confusing, but don't have too much time today. 🙂

                      slacktoid@lemmy.mlS 1 Reply Last reply
                      1
                      • F [email protected]

                        It is normal usage. Though personally I'd probably make another "main" function, to avoid declaring a bunch of global variables

                        N This user is from outside of this forum
                        N This user is from outside of this forum
                        [email protected]
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #103

                        Yeah. I like using main() that way too. It's usually just a high-level function that handles globals relevant to running in standalone and calling other functions to do work.

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • L [email protected]

                          Alternative: put entry point code in file __main__.py & run the containing package (eg, some_package) as a top-level expression (eg, python -m some_package).

                          N This user is from outside of this forum
                          N This user is from outside of this forum
                          [email protected]
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #104

                          TIL. Thanks for that!

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          1
                          • grrgyle@slrpnk.netG [email protected]

                            I remember how weird this looked the first time I saw it and while I may now understand it, it still looks jank af

                            F This user is from outside of this forum
                            F This user is from outside of this forum
                            [email protected]
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #105

                            Python: I'm so readable that I'm practically executable pseudo-code

                            Also Python: if __name__ == '__main__': . . .

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            3
                            • A [email protected]

                              I still wonder why.

                              unless it's for something that you want to work as an importable module and a standalone tool, then why do you need that?

                              A This user is from outside of this forum
                              A This user is from outside of this forum
                              [email protected]
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #106

                              The main two reasons that I can think of to include this even when you have no intention of importing this as a library are:

                              1. For unit testing you will need to import as a module.
                              2. Sometimes I will run a python interactive interpreter and then import my script so that I can do some manual testing without needing to change my main function or if stmt.
                              1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • P [email protected]

                                How do you feel about other peoples Go code?

                                addie@feddit.ukA This user is from outside of this forum
                                addie@feddit.ukA This user is from outside of this forum
                                [email protected]
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #107

                                Well now. My primary exposure to Go would be using it to take first place in my company's 'Advent of Code' several years ago, in order to see what it was like, after which I've been pleased never to have to use it again. Some of our teams have used it to provide microservices - REST APIs that do database queries, some lightweight logic, and conversion to and from JSON - and my experience of working with that is that they've inexplicably managed to scatter all the logic among dozens of files, for what might be done with 80 lines of Python. I suspect the problem in that case is the developers, though.

                                It has some good aspects - I like how easy it is to do a static build that can be deployed in a container.

                                The actual language itself I find fairly abominable. The lack of exceptions means that error handling is all through everything, and not necessarily any better than other modern languages. The lack of overloads means that you'll have multiple definitions of eg. Math.min cluttering things up. I don't think the container classes are particularly good. The implementation of pointers seems solely implemented to let you have null pointer exceptions, it's a pointless wart.

                                If what you're wanting to code is the kind of thing that Google do, in the exact same way that Google do it, and you have a team of hipsters who all know how it works, then it may be a fine choice. Otherwise I would probably recommend using something else.

                                S S 2 Replies Last reply
                                4
                                • S [email protected]

                                  Go code is always an abomination.

                                  addie@feddit.ukA This user is from outside of this forum
                                  addie@feddit.ukA This user is from outside of this forum
                                  [email protected]
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #108

                                  Succinctly and well put.

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • B [email protected]

                                    It simply swaps some things around to make things more confusing, then goes into an infinite loop (whether or not you import or execute it standalone). it's no different than just including in the global scope:

                                    while True:
                                        pass
                                    

                                    I was kinda lazy with the fuckery, tbh. I could have gotten much more confusing, but don't have too much time today. 🙂

                                    slacktoid@lemmy.mlS This user is from outside of this forum
                                    slacktoid@lemmy.mlS This user is from outside of this forum
                                    [email protected]
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #109

                                    Lol OK I was wondering how would this run

                                    And yes you should!!

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • J [email protected]

                                      The point of the name==main logic is that it checks if that is the file that was invoked (like running python filename.py). If you just put a main() in the global scope it will be called either when the file is invoked or loaded (which can cause unintended consequences).

                                      L This user is from outside of this forum
                                      L This user is from outside of this forum
                                      [email protected]
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #110

                                      Dumb person question: if it's good practice to do this so things don't go sideways, shouldn't it be a built-in feature/utility/function/whatever?

                                      J 1 Reply Last reply
                                      1
                                      • B [email protected]

                                        Your ld.so contains:

                                        Entry point address: 0x1d780

                                        EDIT: ...with which I meant, modulo brainfart: My libc.so.6 contains a proper entry address, while other libraries are pointing at 0x0 and coredump when executed. libc.so is a linker script, presumably because GNU compulsively overcomplicates everything.

                                        ...I guess that's enough for the kernel. It might be a linux-only thing, maybe even unintended and well linux doesn't break userspace.

                                        Speaking of, I was playing it a bit fast and loose: _start is merely the default symbol name for the entry label, I'm sure nasm and/or ld have ways to set it to something different.

                                        J This user is from outside of this forum
                                        J This user is from outside of this forum
                                        [email protected]
                                        wrote on last edited by [email protected]
                                        #111

                                        Btw, ld.so is a symlink to ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 at least on my system. It is an statically linked executable. The ld.so is, in simpler words, an interpreter for the ELF format and you can run it:

                                        ld.so --help
                                        

                                        Entry point address: 0x1d780

                                        Which seems to be contained in the only executable section segment of ld.so

                                        LOAD 0x0000000000001000 0x0000000000001000 0x0000000000001000
                                             0x0000000000028bb5 0x0000000000028bb5  R E    0x1000
                                        

                                        Edit: My understanding of this quite shallow; the above is a segment that in this case contains the entirety of the .text section.

                                        1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • _ [email protected]

                                          Python people explaining fail to see the point: Yes we know dunders exist. We just want you to say: "Yeah, that is a bit hacky, isn't it?"

                                          N This user is from outside of this forum
                                          N This user is from outside of this forum
                                          [email protected]
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #112

                                          Is it? I really don't think so. What can you propose that's better? I think if __name__ == __main__ works perfectly fine and can't really think of anything that would be better.

                                          And you don't have to use it either if you don't want to anyway, so no, I don't think it's that much of a hack. Especially when the comic compares C as an example, which makes no sense to me whatsoever.

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