Python is Not an Acceptable ML

The programming language Python is a popular fixture in introductory programming courses. The adoption of Python as a programming language for introductory courses is mainly driven by two reasons:

  1. Popularity in scientific computing and software industry.
  2. Readability.

While the first point is irrefutable, the readability enabled by Python’s surface-level syntax does not compensate for its many violations of certain fundamental principles related to programming language and user interface design. In this article, we look at certain common problems with Python faced by beginning programmers and will see how a programming language with a better design, OCaml, avoids or even completely prevents these issues.

When programming, there are multiples classes of errors that could occur. Some errors are detected by the text editor or IDE while typing, some errors are detected while compiling the program, some errors are always detected when the program is run, some errors remain hidden until some conditions are met during the runtime. A well-designed programming language ensures that most of the errors can be detected by the programmer as early as possible.

Can’t we create a perfect programming language by designing it so that all errors are compile-time errors? While such languages exist, they are usually hard to program without advanced knowledge. So all languages are designed with this trade-off between correctness and usability. However, this trade-off is not linear. Suppose we quantify usability and correctness on a scale of 1 to 100. Then, there will be languages that rate 80u in usability and 80c in correctness and those that rate 90u in usability and 50c in correctness. The main thesis I put forward is that OCaml is an (80u, 80c) language while Python is, at best, a (90u, 50c) language for introductory programming courses. I will try to convince you of this by listing a series of examples comparing Python and OCaml.

Errors of commission and omission #

The following code in Python has an error. Can you find it?

def sound(animal):
    if animal == 'dog':
        return 'bow'
    elif animal == 'cat':
        return 'meow'
    elif animal == 'cow':
        return 'moo'
    elif anima1 == 'pig':
        return 'oink'
    elif animal == 'human':
        return 'huh'

print(sound('cat'))

produces:

meow

As you can see, the program prints the expected output. If you did not manage to find the error, one of the animal is mis-spelled anima1. This is a conditional runtime error in Python that should have been a compilation error.

Let us now write it in OCaml. If you fancy it, the above function can be written without even spelling out the parameter.

let sound = function
  | "dog" -> "bow"
  | "cat" -> "meow"
  | "cow" -> "moo"
  | "pig" -> "oink"
  | "human" -> "huh"
  | _ -> assert false

let () = print_endline (sound "cat")

produces:

meow

If you are spooked by the parameter not having a name, notice that the name of the parameter is irrelevant because it conveys no information to the reader. A good programming language lets you avoid unnecessary details. Of course, you could also write this in a more Pythonic style as follows so that you may misspell the parameter. The following code has a spelling error.

let sound animal =
  if animal = "dog" then "bow"
  else if animal = "cat" then "meow"
  else if animal = "cow" then "moo"
  else if anima1 = "pig" then "oink"
  else if animal = "human" then "huh"
  else assert False

and OCaml will report it as follows:

Line 5, characters 10-16:
5 |   else if anima1 = "pig" then "oink"
              ^^^^^^
Error: Unbound value anima1
Hint: Did you mean animal?

Staying with the same example, let’s say we want to write a legs function that returns the number of legs of an animal.

def sound(animal):
    if animal == 'dog':
        return 'bow'
    elif animal == 'cat':
        return 'meow'
    elif animal == 'caterpillar':
        return '...'

def legs(animal):
    if animal == 'dog' or animal == 'cat':
        return 4
    elif animal == 'caterpillar':
        return 1000

In the future, you may want your program to handle 'human' as an animal. So you change the definition of sound as follows:

def sound(animal):
    if animal == 'dog':
        return 'bow'
    elif animal == 'cat':
        return 'meow'
    elif animal == 'caterpillar':
        return '...'
    elif animal == 'human':
        return 'huh'

but forget to update legs. Now legs('human') is None and Python doesn’t warn you. This is a conditional runtime error because the function legs('human') may not be called in your program.

The natural way to write OCaml easily avoids such bugs. We have the ability to easily define sum types in a light-weight manner:

type animal = Cat | Dog | Caterpillar

let sound = function
  | Cat -> "meow"
  | Dog -> "bow"
  | Caterpillar -> "..."

let legs = function
  | Cat | Dog -> 4
  | Caterpillar -> 1000

Now, if we change the type as follows:

type animal = Cat | Dog | Caterpillar | Human

let legs = function
  | Cat | Dog -> 4
  | Caterpillar -> 1000

the OCaml compiler can point out the places where we forgot to handle humans.

Lines 3-5, characters 11-23:
3 | ...........function
4 |   | Cat | Dog -> 4
5 |   | Caterpillar -> 1000..
Warning 8 [partial-match]: this pattern-matching is not exhaustive.
Here is an example of a case that is not matched:
Human
type animal = Cat | Dog | Caterpillar | Human

What’s in a name? #

The scope of a name defines the context in which it is valid. Python has unintuitive rules that define scope.

day = 'Monday'

def setday(newday):
    day = newday

setday('Tuesday')
print(day)

produces:

Monday

In the above program, the day in setday refers to a newly created variable named day and not the global day. In other words, Python implicitly creates variables upon first assignment in functions so that an explicit keyword like var or let is not required. This is a violation of its own guiding principle “Explicit is better than implicit.” (The Zen of Python).

But, global variables are evil. So this is a non-problem, right? The problem also manifests for non-global variables.

def end(s):
    last = "x"
    def a(): last = "a"
    def b(): last = "b"
    for c in s:
        if c == "a": a()
        elif c == "b": b()
    return last

print(end("abracadabra"))

produces:

x

The assignment to last in a() and b() has no effect on the last in the scope of end(). Python’s fix for its self-created scoping problems is to use global and nonlocal declarations. However, it is quite easy for a beginner to simply forget to declare it and create these conditional runtime errors.

Python UI lies #

A fundamental rule in user interface design (programming language or otherwise) is that things that look the same should behave the same. Now, consider the following code in Python:

x = 5
y = x
x = x + 1
print(x, y)

x = []
y = x
x.append(0)
print(x, y)

which produces:

6 5
[0] [0]

So why did changing x also change y in the second case but not the first? Python provides a consistent interface to both value types and reference types, which are fundamentally different, and therefore should not be accessible through the same interface.

A particularly problematic situation arises due to *, the list replication operator. The expression xs * i creates a list obtained by replicating xs , i times. So, one may try to create a 3x3 matrix and set it’s top-left entry to 1 as follows:

xs = [[0] * 3] * 3
xs[0][0] = 1
print(xs)

and we get:

[[1, 0, 0], [1, 0, 0], [1, 0, 0]]

The solution in these cases is to ensure that lists (and other reference types, like dictionaries) are referred to uniquely or ensure that they are never modified (Enforcing this in the compiler gives you Rust, the programming language.). It is not necessary that you have multiple named references to a list such as xs and ys above for having non-unique references. You can also have implicit duplicate references in Python. The following seems to work fine.

xs = [1, 2, 3, 4]
for x in xs:
    if x % 2 == 1:
        xs.remove(x)
print(xs)

to remove all odd numbers from the list.

[2, 4]

But, if we try to modify it slightly to remove all elements.

xs = [1, 2, 3, 4]
for x in xs:
    xs.remove(x)
print(xs)

we get:

[2, 4]

The problem here is that the iteration statement keeps an implicit reference to the list and it conflicts with the reference to xs in the body of the iteration.

Python non-functionality #

Higher-order programming, the ability to manipulate functions as values, is a very important concept because it allows even more code reuse than first-order abstractions. Python’s inability to distinguish between value and reference types impair higher-order programming even though Python has adopted many of these features from the ML-family of languages. This is particularly problematic because this can lead to situations where a sequence of good choices lead to a globally bad program. Consider the following definitions:

def dup(x):
    return (x, x)

def applyfst(f, pair):
    (x, y) = pair
    return (f(x), y)

Applying these functions on value types such as integers work fine.

print(applyfst(lambda x: x + 1, dup(0)))

produces:

(1, 0)

but on reference types such as lists, we get unintuitive behavior.

def append0(xs):
    xs.append(0)
    return xs
print(applyfst(append0, dup([])))

produces:

([0], [0])

Notice that the definition of dup and applyfst are perfectly logical. Yet, their use in different contexts lead to inconsistent behavior. This is again a conditional runtime error because everything works fine as long as you only use dup and applyfst on value types such as integers and strings. Notice that in a real-world situation, functions such as dup and applyfst may be written by a different person and packaged as a library. Now, a user of this library cannot use it properly without knowing how it is implemented, which defeats the fundamental purpose of having libraries in the first place.

The equivalent in OCaml has no unexpected behavior.

let dup x = (x, x)

let applyfst f (x, y) = (f x, y)

let inc x = x + 1

let () = assert (
  applyfst inc (dup 0) = (1, 0)
)

let append0 xs = xs @ [0]

let () = assert (
  applyfst append0 (dup []) = ([0], [])
)

Newer versions of Python try to fix these problems to some extent by providing immutable types frozenset, frozendict etc. But, lists, sets, and dictionaries are used far more often than their immutable counterparts.

Even the built-in higher-order functions such as map in Python has to be used while keeping this pitfall in mind. For example:

def listmap(f, xs): return list(map(f, xs))

print (
    listmap (
        lambda f: f(0),
        [lambda x: x+1, lambda x: x+2]
    )
)

# Let us avoid the repetition with a 'for' loop.
print (
    listmap (
        lambda f: f(0),
        [lambda x: x+i for i in range(1, 10)]
    )
)

is an instance where a for loop cannot be used to eliminate repetition as demonstrated by the following result.

[1, 2]
[9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9]

It is possible to teach to avoid such errors by explaining how the Python abstract machine works. But, the sole point of a high-level programming language is to bring the level of conversation of the machine up to a human’s; not to bring down a human’s level of conversation to the machine’s. Now, in OCaml, the following works as expected:

let apply fs x = List.map (fun f -> f x) fs

let rec range n m =
  if n = m then [n] else n :: range (n+1) m

let fs = List.map (fun i -> (+) i) (range 1 9)

let () = assert (apply fs 0 = range 1 9)

OCaml imperativity #

I will also discuss a case where Python is considered more usable (I am not aware of a situation where Python is more correct.). The following computes the factorial of a number using iteration and a mutable variable p.

def factorial(n):
    p = 1
    for i in range(2, n+1):
        p = p * i
    return p

The classic recursive definition in functional languages is not as performant although it perfectly mirrors the mathematical definition.

let rec factorial n =
  if n = 0 then 1
  else n * factorial (n-1)

Functional programming language experts favor a tail-recursive style to gain performance in such cases.

let factorial n =
  let rec loop acc = function
    | 0 -> acc
    | n -> loop (acc*n) (n-1)
  in loop 1 n

However, OCaml is not as strict about writing in a functional style as some other functional programming languages. We can perfectly mirror the Python implementation as follows:

let factorial n =
  let p = ref 1 in
  for i = 2 to n do
    p := !p * i
  done;
  !p

The only difference is that we have to state, explicitly, that p is mutable by making it a ref. The bang ! operator then retrieves the current contents of that referred value explicitly. Subjectively, this may look uglier than the Python equivalent. But, it satisfies the “Explicit is better than implicit.” principle.

Fixing Python? #

Realistically, it would be difficult to convince people to switch from Python to OCaml. So I suggest the following guidelines to help learners:

Epilogue #

There may be many scenarios where Python is a better choice than OCaml. This article only considers suitability of a programming language for introductory programming courses. I believe that just like the switch from C to Python for introductory programming courses enabled larger number of students to get into programming, a switch from Python to a better designed programming language will have a similar effect in the future.