which feature of python do you like most?

[mensanator at aol.com]

zelzel.zsu at gmail.com wrote:
> which feature of python do you like most?
>
> I've heard from people that python is very useful.
> Many people switch from perl to python because they like it more.
>
> I am quite familiar with perl, I've don't lots of code in perl.
> Now, I was curious and interested in the python people.
> They certainly made their best choice from perl to python.
>
> but i have no interesting python experence before, thought i've read a
> few chapters
> of a python tutorial book. The things are much like the perl one.
>
> I have no idea why people are so facinating with python.
> So I post this question:  What do you use in your dairy work with
> python?
> what is the thing that python makes you happy?
>
>
> I certainly don't want to miss a language if it's so great!
> can anyone share your happy experence with python?

Big Arithmetic. I switched from perl to Python when I heard it had
built-in
support for unlimited precision integers. Sure, I found out later that
perl
has a Big Arithmetic module, but I had already been converted to Python
which also has the gmpy module (the Gnu Multiple Precision library).
Python/gmpy is a pretty hard combination to beat. You can get better
performance with c and GMP, but c is a low-level language.

I even compared it to Java and its Big Arithmetic module. Python/gmpy
can actually outperform Java as the problem/operators get very large
(when most of the time in the Python program is spent in the gmpy
module
which is compiled c code).

I've toyed with REXX (ridiculously slow), UBASIC (ugh, and precision
limited to 3000 digits, woefully inadequate for my needs), Java (see
above)
and Scheme (alien, and implementations suck). I haven't found anything
yet that combines the ease of programming with the power I need to make
me switch from Python.