On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 02:45:08PM -0500, Mike Miller wrote: > OK, but how does Python compare with Perl and Ruby? They don't have > interactive shells? Are there other major differences. Imho, you should learn a little bit of all three so you have a bit of context for the differences. That said, I wouldn't bother with perl unless there's a legacy codebase you are interested in. They haven't released a new major version in some 10 years, and I don't think very many people choose it for *new* projects. It does still have a foothold in the sys admin's tool belt and is ubiquitous in server environments, but as a language it's frequently discounted now days for anything beyond glorified shell scripts. Still worth knowing at least superficially because you will run into it. Ruby and python are somewhat similar in terms of popularity and adoption. Ruby's probably stronger on the web side (with rails). Python can certainly do web things, but there's significant fragmentation in terms of the availability of frameworks and development environments. ymmv, drue -- As implied by email protocols, the information in this message is not not confidential. Any middle-man or recipient may inspect, modify, copy, forward, reply to, delete, or filter email for any purpose. As the sender, I acknowledge that I have less expectation of the control and privacy of this message than I would a post-card. As a result, nothing in this message is legally binding without cryptographic proof of its integrity, and no legal obligation can be implied on behalf of the recipient. http://bilbo.hobbiton.org/wiki/Eat_My_Sig