[ale] What to use

[Fletch]

>>>>> "John" == John Wells <jb at sourceillustrated.com> writes:
    Fletch said:
    >> At any rate, before this devolves into a dissertation on why
    >> Python blows :)

    John> Actually, that'd be interesting to read...  

*sigh*, OK I'll bite.


A quick top few of the warts:

* the whitespace thing (which pretty much means no `python -e ...',
  which means you have no quick recourse to it from the command line)

* despite its vaunted OO-ness, it's got gaps (e.g. len(array) instead
  of array.len; come on even Javascript gets this right :)
 
* despite its vaunted regularity, trailing commas are sometimes
  syntactically significant with different effects in different
  contexts (e.g. tuple creation for assignment, newline or not for
  print)

* lambdas aren't (aren't really closures, that is)

* the whole lack of real namespaces (although this has gotten better)

* no CPAN (and no, the Parnassus thing doesn't come close to CPAN)


To be fair, some good things:

* Classes and methods are first-class data types

* the `"%(foo)s %(bar)" % dict' interpolation construct

* the way parameters are handled (the current perl mechanism is a
  crufty holdover from perl4 days; there are some alternatives with
  conventions and modules, but they're kind of kludges)

* the xmlrpclib module is really handy for one off clients (I've
  actually got about 5-8 cookie cutter descendents of one program that
  all interface to a perl XML-RPC server, because it takes about 2
  minutes to replace the guts of one to present data from a different
  call)


Again, I didn't want to digress into a long language advocacy rant.  I
would definately recommend learning Python, but it's just got enough
warts that I personally don't have the urge to use it regularly.  Also
as I mentioned look into Ruby, which has stolen from both Python and
Perl (I'm actually trying to find an excuse to write something
somewhat substantial in Ruby, I just haven't had a chance yet).


-- 
Fletch                | "If you find my answers frightening,       __`'/|
fletch at phydeaux.org   |  Vincent, you should cease askin'          \ o.O'
770 294-0820 (m)      |  scary questions." -- Jules                =(___)=
                      |                                               U
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