On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 04:16:22PM -0400, Nate Straz wrote:
> > >>I want to spend some time learning a general-purpose interpreted 
> > >>language.
> > >
> > >I recommend Python.  The interactive shell it provides make it very easy 
> > >to try things out before you put them in a script.
> > 
> > OK, but how does Python compare with Perl and Ruby?  They don't have 
> > interactive shells?  Are there other major differences.
> 
> Python has a very large and active development community, including work
> on the core language.  It has a very rich standard library and several
> web frameworks to choose from.
> 
> I haven't done anything with Ruby, so I can't comment on that.
> 
> I have written some Perl code.  Enough that I'm not completely
> frustrated with the language anymore.  There is always some set of magic
> characters you need to put around a variable name in Perl to get it to
> do what you want.  I think Python is better for the following reasons:
>  1. The interactive shell makes it trivial to experiment.
>  2. The standard library is just that, standard.  It'll always be there.
>  3. OOP was built in, not bolted on
>  4. There's a local Python Users Group (TCZPUG) ;)
>  5. Python code tends to look cleaner than other code.

I second Nate's suggestion.  I have developed in both Perl and Python.
I feel Perl to be more 'natural' -- I seldom need to look things up in
Perl, but I can't live without Python's excellent online documentation
-- but I find that Python scales better as your program and team grow
larger.  I wrote a few 3 to 5 Kloc programs in Perl (mostly due to
external requirements), but in retrospect they would have been easier
to implement and maintain using Python.

Cheers,
florin

-- 
Bruce Schneier expects the Spanish Inquisition.
      http://geekz.co.uk/schneierfacts/fact/163
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