Programmer Humor @programming.dev Destide @feddit.uk 1w ago

Trying to learn a young language, using a tutorial that's more than a year old

Good old Udemy Elixr/Pheonix courses being irrelevant within 6 months but still trying to con people by saying they're updated to current year.

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It's even happened to me with python. I stepped away from programming for a while and now all the guides are about 3.8 while the version on trixie is 3.13
- Has python changed that much for a new learner that a 3.8 tutorial is worthless in 3.13?
  
  I don't think so...there's new features that wouldn't be taught, but most everything from Hello World to decorators and lambdas were present in both.
  
  Now, if you have a python 2 guide....yeah. That's worthless. That shows its flaws during "Hello World".
  
  Python 3.11 onwards can basically be a fully statically typed language, which is a pretty dramatic change in where you spend most of your time. Python 3.13 allows you to do multi threading as a compiler option, we might see native multi threading in 3.14 or 3.15 (or maybe that's a 4.0-worthy feature honestly)
  
  Python now has type hints, which are not the same as static typing. Those hints do not change program operation. See https://peps.python.org/pep-3107/
  
  You can pass a string to a function parameter annotated as int and Python will happily accept it (assuming the function does not attempt to call a method that a string doesn't have).
  
  You got any code written for Python 3.8 that won't run in 3.13?
  
  CAN being the critical word here. If you use tools like pydantic, then yes, typing can be strictly enforced, or as most people use it, you can type only what you want to type.
  
  Well the last version I was actively using was 3.6 and the shiniest new feature I remember is switch cases from 3.7, so yes it has for me
  
  Well. Yeah, if you want to learn the shiniest new features, you'll need the shiniest new references.
  
  But for a new user, for whom Python is probably one of the first languages they learn, a 3.8 reference won't give them much trouble for a while.
  
  I say this as a novice Python user tho.
  
  I think each of 3.8 through 3.11 were substantial, just in different ways.
  
  I believe it! One glimpse at the latest docs tells me that every major builtin library I knew is depreciated or gone. I'm not even sure if secrets is still the correct encryption library. Honestly I might have to start fresh with Python like it's a new language

42 comments