python, perl, lisp, tcl / got a decision to make, can you give me a view point please ? and a joke for python users :)

[Mike C. Fletcher]

I agree to the Python and Javascript characterisations (never used Haskell).
I've written production-level Javascript-in-VRML (which adds a whole other
level of aggravation) code for 3 years now, and if you want a workout,
that's it.  I'd also add Prolog to the list of "mind expanders", it's really
fun to figure out how to make "what you want done" into a side-effect of a
unification engine's "logic".

Lisp is fun, but once you get past the program-is-data stuff it's not really
mind-expanding either.  Maybe that's just 'cause I only ever used AutoLISP,
could be there's some consciousness-building stuff somewhere in the more
exotic variants...

Perl's... well, I only used it for about 2 weeks (historical note: I was
reading through a "learn perl in 21 days" (I know, shameful, but it was on
sale, and I was a broke student) book to be able to work on a particular
project, and on the last page of the book was a 1 paragraph description of
Python "This language has a cleaner syntax and may eventually replace
Perl.", or something like that.  That was my introduction to Python.  I
downloaded the then-current interpreter over my 14.4 modem, and I haven't
written a line of Perl since :) .  I consider the book to have been worth
the $20 I paid.)... well, it's Perl.  Some people are into that kind of
sadism, and they _claim_ it brings them closer to the ultimate, but I wonder
about those kinds of claims when we find rooms full of dead monks with
punctuations all over their bodies...

Python, however, is just too simple and straightforward to be of any use to
anyone seeking to pierce the bubble of the universe.
*pop*

-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Martelli [mailto:aleaxit at yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 2:45 PM
To: python-list at python.org
Subject: Re: python, perl, lisp, tcl / got a decision to make, can you
give me a view point please ? and a joke for python users :)


"Yvon Boulianne" <mysticsguy at yahoo.ca> wrote in message
...
Unfortunately, Python is far too good a language to serve this
purpose.  It's so simple you won't get much mental exercise
learning it, and so powerful it will make it too easy for you to
write all kinds of programs.  For your purpose [2],
...
or javascript (chaotically and ramblingly hard
to learn, yet wimpy enough that using it to write significant
programs is going to be serious exercise each and every time).
...