[cumbria_lug] To Python, or not to Python?

[Dave Murphy]

On Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:40:07 +0100
Rosalind Mitchell <rcm at swimbarrow.co.uk> wrote:

> But is there a good reason for learning Python?  And would anybody like
> to try to convince me of its merits over Perl?

Back story - I learnt to program in Perl, moved to Delphi, then VB.NET,
then C#, then Ruby (on Rails), and finally Python. I'm now paid to code
in Python for a small distribution you may have heard of... :)

Ignoring the Windows centric languages, I loved Perl, but found it too
chaotic. I loved Rails (note the past tense), and preferred some of the
details of Ruby to Python, but I've found Python to be capable of
everything I've thrown at it, huge amount of documentation, a plethora
of examples, a friendly community (the Rails one do themselves no
favours), and some amazing frameworks (Django, Twisted and Zope in
particular). These more than make for the strict whitespace rules
(which can be harsh coming from Perl) and other language peculiarities.

I've also found that Python apps are far easier to deploy - even cross
platform - and less resource intensive (comparing Django to Rails here).

> It's just that the more anarchic nature of Perl suits me!

In which case Python may be a bit of a shock, but there's still more
than one way to do it, and Python examples in general are far easier to
read - even without comments - than Perl which makes learning much
easier.

-- 
Dave Murphy - http://schwuk.com
Get in touch - http://schwuk.com/contact
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