Why learn Python ??

[David M. Cook]

In article <40029dad$0$28706$a729d347 at news.telepac.pt>, Bicho Verde wrote:

> I have now free time and money to do what I want :-)
>      I have some basic skills in programming (C, Pascal, Macromedia
> Actionscript) but don't know exactly what to do in the world of programming.
>     And also I don't know exactly why would I learn Python rather than C#,
> C++ or Perl. Basicaly I don't know where to start, if there is much to do or

You could casually pick up enough Python to be useful in a week or so of
evenings.  

Perl is not much harder, but has a lot of "gotchas".  I think Perl is more
natural as a system administration language, though, as that is what it was
designed for.

The others require much more up-front study before one can start writing
useful programs.  C#/Java are much easier than C++, but have huge, complex
APIs (my experience here is with Java, not C#) and require a lot of
boilerplate to get things done.

http://www.ferg.org/projects/python_java_side-by-side.html

> if it is has it seems and there is software to everything nowadays and so
> doesn't make sense to spend time in learning a programming language.

This is where the ease of writing "one off" Python programs comes in.  When
you do find yourself needing to write some custom code, you'll find it very
easy to cobble together something useful quickly.

Dave Cook