Perl Vs Python

[Tim Golden]

<abpillai at lycos.com> (lightly snipped)
The disadvantages I think is probably speed, poor documentation.
Documentation as such is poor, since we have one or two accredited python
books out there when compared to scores of Perl books. 
People (like you) ,rely more on the internet and newsgroups than standard
documentation 
for fixing their python related problems. 
</abpillai at lycos.com>

Every so often this kind of thing comes up... number of books as an index of
popularity
(and implicitly success). I find this a false index in one respect at least:
the paucity of Python
books reflects the excellence of its native documentation set, in my
opinion. The combination
of the standard bundled documentation, the introspection coupled with the
invaluable help ()
when it arrived and c.l.py all give me pretty much all I need. I do have the
MH/AR Win32 book
and David Beazley's Library Reference on my shelf and I use Safari to browse
the Cookbook
(until I buy a copy) but by and large I can get by admirably without
shelling out for (often
overpriced) doorstops, no matter how well written. I simply don't need them.

Granted, I am a professional programmer with a degree in Computer Science
(or Computation, 
as my degree certificate from UMIST calls it), but I think the information's
there for any intelligent
hacker to read, learn and inwardly digest with ease.

TJG

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