[Wolves] Python or Perl?

[kev adams]

On Wednesday 22 Jun 2005 15:54, Lee Parkes wrote:
> Hi folks,
> At the risk of starting a religeous war, I was wondering what the relative
> merits of Perl and Python are. I'm not a programmer, but, I ought to start
> to learn a language like either of the above so I can write scripts to do
> useful stuff. When I say I'm not a programmer I really mean it :) I've done
> some Bash scripting and a little bit of C but thats it..

I used to use perl regularly a few years ago & did a one week python course at 
open advantage last week.  So obviously I'd recommend python ;~)  In all 
seriousness it probably is a better language for a beginner but they're both 
extremely powerful & great tools to learn.  You can't go wrong learning 
either one.  As has been mentioned perl has been around longer so has more 
modules available via CPAN.  It was originally conceived as a text processing 
tool (hence Practical Extraction and Report Language).

Brilliant course by the way & highly recommended - keep an eye on the website 
to see what's coming up soon http://www.openadvantage.org/
It was run for open advantage by Kat (off the list) & a few of her Clocksoft 
colleagues.  

kev