perl vs python

RyanMcCoskrie writes:
> Python is clean simple, easy and the creators believe that every
> problem should have one good solution.

Python has one creator and any of his ideas a defined as being The
Right Thing[tm]. Presently, The Right Thing Version 2 is being worked
on, which kind-of contradicts the factual claim in the first sentence,
making it rather look like 'do as I tell and stop asking silly
questions'.

> The upshot here is that it's very readable and you can code quickly.

To someone not familiar with it, the 'words' Python is composed of are
as 'unreadable' as those of any other unkown language. In other words,
it is meaningless to refer to the 'readbility' of a
language. Languages are not read, they are used to compose texts and
these are read. How readable they are depends on their style. And in
this respect, the (very few) texts written in Phyton I had to deal
with so far easily won leadership in the 'worst of breed' class. The
only similar thing I can think of at moment would be the Open Vision
contributed Kerberos 5 code, but the latter is at least (in the parts
I know) mostly linear in structure, while the others were rather like
naturally grown ethernet TP-cabling.

A side question would be if the supposed 'ease of use' of Python
empowers chaotically minded people to create more complicated messes
because of it.

> Perl is messy, cryptic and the creators believe that how a problem
> should be solved depends on who's working on it.

.... as opposed to 2000 lines of code no one understands which don't
work (Python), a similarly disposed person will equally easily be able
to create three lines of perl no one understand which don't work. But
that's still a problem of language use and not of the language itself.

On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:03:47 +0200, Rainer Weikusat
wrote:

>RyanMcCoskrie writes:

>To someone not familiar with it, the 'words' Python is composed of are
>as 'unreadable' as those of any other unkown language. In other words,
>it is meaningless to refer to the 'readbility' of a
>language.

Readability? How about reading spaces?
One of the biggest complaints about Python is it's use of whitespace
as important language delimiters...... invisible tabs and indentations
are crucial to Python, but you can't see them....... this is appalling
to Perl people. Basing scripts on whitespace being organized into
patterns is totalitarian.

Long live random whitespace.... long live Perl. :-)

zentara

--
I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth.
http://zentara.net/Remember_How_Lucky_You_Are.html

zentara writes:

> On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:03:47 +0200, Rainer Weikusat
> wrote:
>
>>RyanMcCoskrie writes:
>
>>To someone not familiar with it, the 'words' Python is composed of are
>>as 'unreadable' as those of any other unkown language. In other words,
>>it is meaningless to refer to the 'readbility' of a
>>language.
>
> Readability? How about reading spaces?
> One of the biggest complaints about Python is it's use of whitespace
> as important language delimiters...... invisible tabs and indentations
> are crucial to Python, but you can't see them.......

This is not really true. For one thing you *can* see white space -- it
is one reason it used /as a delimiter/ is so may languages (including
Perl).

There are only two issues. One is tabs for indentation. I don't use
then in any language anymore, so that is not an issue for me.

The other point is that indentation is (in a few places, not all)
significant in Python. This is, to me, entirely natural since I've
been using languages with some for of "offside rule" since 1978 but if
it bothers you then I suppose such languages are ruled out.

> this is appalling
> to Perl people.

Perl has some rather "interesting" parsing rules as well! Don't get
me wrong, I am a bit of Perl fanatic -- I use it all the time -- but
syntactic clarity is not its strongest feature!

--
Ben.

On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:57:00 +0100, Ben Bacarisse
wrote:

>zentara writes:
>
>> On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:03:47 +0200, Rainer Weikusat
>> wrote:
>>

>> Readability? How about reading spaces?

>This is not really true. For one thing you *can* see white space -- it
>is one reason it used /as a delimiter/ is so may languages (including
>Perl).
>
>There are only two issues. One is tabs for indentation. I don't use
>then in any language anymore, so that is not an issue for me.

>Perl has some rather "interesting" parsing rules as well! Don't get
>me wrong, I am a bit of Perl fanatic -- I use it all the time -- but
>syntactic clarity is not its strongest feature!

Yeah, just flaming. :-) Python must be good because it's following
is quite large.

Disregarding the whitespace/indentation issues, I suppose the biggest
difference between Perl and Python, is the object-orientation of Python.
This tends to make it popular in colleges, because the teachers like the
cleaness of OO style. Classes and objects are so neat and tidy, so the
colleges are preferring to use Java, Python, C++, etc; and we are seeing
the results as these people graduate and bring that style to the general
public.

BUT....... many OO style programmers, come crawling
to Perl after awhile, typically saying things like: "I just want a quick
script to do this, and I don't want to waste time on building objects".
Or " Perl has a certain kind of simplicity". :-)

zentara

--
I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth.
http://zentara.net/Remember_How_Lucky_You_Are.html

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