[Discuss] Interpreters vs Compilers

[Adam Parkin]

Deryk Barker wrote:
> Why perl rather than python? You gain nothing and you lose a lot - 
> readability for one.  

I disagree with that.  I have a pile of excellent Perl reference books 
on my bookshelf and when I go to write a short throwaway script it never 
takes me more than 5 minutes to find what I'm looking for (I did this 
just a couple of days ago in fact).  And if I can't find it in there, 
then the man pages are absolutely excellent.  And if I can't find it 
there, CPAN fills in nicely.

With Python, I managed to find a barely decent set of online 
documentation (the "official" docs by Guido), and not a single decent 
book on the language that was anywhere near as clear or helpful as 
"Learning Perl" is for Perl.  Not to mention there's nothing even close 
to resembling CPAN (last time I checked) for Python.

Admittedly part of this is just personal familiarity, but to say you 
"gain nothing" with Perl is just off the wall wrong.  I'm not saying 
that Python sucks and Perl rules, in fact I'd agree completely that 
Python is a much better language for "real world" (i.e. - nonthrowaway) 
projects.  It's most definitely a better teaching language for new 
programmers to learn.  All I'm saying is that there are perks to the 
Perl side of the equation.

 > I object in principal to a language that makes me memorise the top
 > row of the keyboard, shifted...

$ and % are only 2 of the 12 keys in the top of my keyboard. :p
-- 
--
Adam Parkin
E-mail: pzelnip at gmail.com
Blog: http://pzelnip.blogspot.com/
----------------------
Feminists can be as sexist as the next guy!

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http://www.vanderburg.org/Misc/Quotes/quotes.html