Why use Python when we've got Perl?

[thehaas at my-deja.com]

In article <37b4ba01 at cs.colorado.edu>,
  Tom Christiansen <tchrist at mox.perl.com> wrote:
> Unbelievably stupid subject, eh?  I certainly thought so when it was
> shoved at us.  The flame war begun in comp.lang.perl.misc isn't doing
> anyone any good, and then coming over to comp.lang.python to stir up
the
> shock troops to send in a few commandos is even worse.  I don't think
> you'd like it if we in comp.lang.perl.misc sent 100,000 script kiddies
> over to comp.lang.python to rant at you guys about how K31L they
though
> Perl was and how L at M3 they thought Python was.
>

I've been reading that flame war but I noticed that it is the Perl
people, for the most part, that have donned the asbestos undies and
charged up their flame throwers (this isn't without exception, of
course).  The Python people have remained relitively calm (the original
post was cross-posted, remember?).

Although Perl and Python, as languages, are very similar, the culture
that surrounds the two languages are quite different.  I know when I've
asked someone for help in either Python or Perl, the Python people are
definitely the most helpful.  I think I can safely say, that the Perl
community is quite arrogant, especially to people new to it.  In Python,
I haven't found that to be the case at all - in fact, quite the
opposite.  They are very helpful in helping out and leading people in
the right direction.  For example: I emailed an another of one Perl
module for help in something and his reply was, "Maybe you should learn
Perl better", nevermind the fact that what I was trying to do was
undocumented.  For help with a Python module, the author told me, "The
problem here is that you are new to Python and my documentation sucks,
so here is how you do it . . ."  The funny part was, *his* documentation
was better then the Perl documentation for the module discussed above.

And, yes, I do program in both, though most often I choose Perl.
However, when I look at some of my dusty Perl programs, I think "what
the f*** was I doing?" and it takes me a while to dig through it and
figure it out.  That situation is almost impossible with Python - the
way it has to be structured makes far more readable code.   In that
respect, Python is better.

Yes, Tom, "neatness" may be subjective, but in any language, my
handwriting is terrible.  I may write in English but some may say it
looks like Arabic. However there isn't a Arab or an American that can
make heads or tails of it.  Even me sometimes . . .

>
> Please and thank you.

And thank you.
>
> --tom
>
- mikeh


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