Is this a dream or a nightmare? (Was Re: XML)

[Grant Griffin]

David T. Grove wrote:
> 
...
> Granted, python is very close to Perl in these respects, but it's
> still more verbose.

That seems to be the popular mythology, but when I've rewritten some of
my old Perl scripts as Python, my experience has been exactly the
opposite: the Python versions invariably are smaller files which have
fewer lines.  In fact, translation of Perl to Python mostly seems to be
a "deletion" process: eliminating braces, $, @, %, and my--as well as
manual function parameter list parsing (which--let's face it--is nothing
short of dopey by 21st-century programming-language standards ;-), etc.

Then again, maybe extensive use of one-liners in Perl could overpower
those other factors.  (In my own case, I'm not big on Perl's one-liners:
even if I ever got really good at writing them, I'm pretty sure I
couldn't read them 10 minutes later.)

> Also, I must admit that "good programming practices" have hit me
> pretty hard recently, when I've had to babysit some newbies from
> another planet... er... country. My elses got unsnuggled and
> 
> die unless @d = map {"$basedir/$_"} grep {!-d && -w} readdir(dir);
> 

What in the heck does all _that_ mean?

> ...which is perfectly logical and readable to me as a single
> "thought"... "get me all the filenames in that directory or halt
> immediately because you'll screw something up".

OK, _now_ I see!  9If only Perl were as readable as a natural language.
<wink>)

if-i-were-designing-a-programming-language-with-the-express-purpose
   -of-eliminating-lines,-i'd-pick-on-the-braces-before-the
   -semicolons-(or-maybe-just-eliminate-both-<wink>)-ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
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