[Gllug] question about python/perl

[salsaman at xs4all.nl]

On Thu, February 24, 2011 04:42, general_email at technicalbloke.com wrote:
> On 23/02/11 23:37, Martin wrote:
>> Hi there,
>>
>> My situation is as follows. My main job is not in IT. Linux is my hobby.
>> I'm also a freelance website designer. I'm ok when it comes to bash,
>> started
>> learning php a few months ago. That's it when it comes to
>> programming/scripting.
>> Now I don't have much time to develop, but I know that SLOWLY I could
>> start learning
>> another language. I'm not going to become a proper programmer (too
>> late for that now),
>> but both as a web developer and possibly an admin in the future, I
>> will need another language.
>>
>> I'm thinking between python and perl. I know that python has a more
>> modern, clear syntax and
>> perl might be hard to read (also depending on who codes). I know that
>> both languages can
>> be used for web development (scripts on the server), and both can be
>> used by system administrators.
>
> If you're the sort of person who enjoys cryptic crosswords then go for
> perl as that's what re-reading your code will feel like a few months
> after the fact! There's always half a dozen ways to do any given thing
> in perl so it can be made very concise, un-readably so. Its not really a
> thing of beauty but it gets the job done for many people and if you're
> using PHP you're already used to that ;)
>
> If you appreciate simplicity and there being one canonical way of doing
> things then go for Python, in fact, just go for Python! The usenet group
> is IMHO the best programming group out there, it's libs are almost as
> bounteous and it's a whole lot prettier / more readable. The downside is
> you may find it a bit more verbose for system admin tasks but the time
> you save by using linguistic shortcuts may be lost if you ever need to
> decode what you've written in the future!
>
> Roger
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>


I am afraid I would disagree. Any language can be used in web development
via CGI if not other means (e.g apache modperl). I personally wouldn't
recommend python for system administration, simply because it runs in a
virtual machine and therefore has more overhead. I would say learn perl
unless you want to be an application developer; but in that cae you should
also consider C++, javascript/ajax and maybe jquery*, java as has been
mentioned or scala** - all of these are quite popular and will likely
become more so in the future.

* http://jquery.com/
** http://www.scala-lang.org/

Salsaman.


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