why should I learn python

[James Stroud]

BartlebyScrivener wrote:
> On Sep 6, 5:36 pm, André <andre.robe... at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Easy to read, easy to write, good libraries and, I have found, an
>> extremely helpful community.
>>
>> Hobbyists (like me) can work on projects written in Python on and off
>> (sometimes for weeks if not months without programming) and be able to
>> resume the work very quickly (because it's so easy to read and
>> understand the code).
>>
> 
> I second these.  I am not a programmer. You can get busy with other
> projects for weeks and come back to Python code and pick up where you
> left off, because it uses WORDS.  Try remembering what (<>) or <*>
> means after being away from Perl for a month.
> 
> rd
> 

Better is to try to remember the differences between and uses of:

   $stupidPerl[4]
   ${stupidPerl}[4]
   $stupidPerl->[4]
   ${stupidPerl}->[4]
   $#stupidPerl[4]
   $#{stupidPerl}[4]
   $#{stupidPerl}->[4]
   $#{$stupidPerl}->[4]->[4]

And so on.

Quiz: which are valid? (Careful now.)

The friggin' language is useless (except for the fact that, like 
window$, a lot of people insist on using it over superior alternatives 
and so you find yourself confronting it from time to time). In fact, it 
was the need to use nested data structures that made me move to python 
when I realized all of the above would be a thing of the past (also made 
useless my perl "cheat sheet" that sits in my big-fat-useless-camel-book).

$Perl->[Useless]

-- 
James Stroud
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095

http://www.jamesstroud.com/