New user's initial thoughts / criticisms of Python

[John von Horn]

Hi Everyone,

I'm Mr. Noobie here, I've just started easing into Python (2.7.4) and am 
enjoying working along to some youtube tutorials. I've done a little 
programming in the past.

I've just got a few thoughts I'd like to share and ask about:

* Why not allow floater=float(int1/int2) - rather than floater=float
(int1)/float(int2)?

Give me a float (or an error message) from evaluating everything in the 
brackets. Don't make me explicitly convert everything myself (unless I 
want to)

* No sign of a select .. case statement

Another useful tool in the programmer's toolbox

Select DayofWeek

	case "mon"

	...

end select

* Call me pedantic by why do we need a trailing comma for a list of one 
item? Keep it intuitive and allow lstShopping=[] or ["Bread"] or 
["Bread", "Milk","Hot Chocolate"] I don't like ["Bread",]. It bugs me.

Just some initial thoughts. I just wanted to know the reasoning behind 
the above, be shown the shortcomings of my ignorance, pointed in the 
right direction. Let the High Priests of Python come forth and speak wise 
words and show me the ignorance of thy ways. Let my cup be filled to 
overflowing with your kind knowledge and wisdom.

Is everyone happy with the way things are? Could anyone recommend a good, 
high level language for CGI work? Not sure if I'm going to be happy with 
Perl (ahhh, get him, he's mentioned Perl and is a heretic!) or Python. I 
would very much value any constructive criticism or insights.

And a "thank you", ["sirs","madams"] but pls, not just ["sirs",]

JvH