[vox-tech] hold on to your hats - perl vs python

[Micah Cowan]

Charles Polisher writes:
 > On Fri, Jul 19, 2002 at 11:09:54AM -0700, Micah Cowan wrote:
 > > Jeff Newmiller writes:
 > >  > On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
 > >  > 
 > >  > > jeff newmiller got me thinking about switching from perl to python as my
 > >  > > main scripting language of choice.
 > >  > > 
 > >  > > i'd like to hear the opinions of anyone who has actually MADE the switch
 > >  > > from perl to python as their scripting language of choice.
 > > 
 > > Sorry to respond to Jeff's mail, but I seem to have accidentally
 > > deleted the original or something.
 > > 
 > > To be honest, I think they're both great languages: there are some
 > > things in each that I really love - and there are some things in each
 > > I really hate. Python has several things which make strong
 > > software engineering principles easier to follow - however, their
 > > lexical scoping rules are slightly bizarre and impractical, regexes
 > > are less powerful, and there are some other things that bother
 > > me. Perl is *fun*, but there's too much magic under the hood, no real
 > > typing, and it's somewhat harder to write truly disciplined software
 > > in.
 > 
 > And lets not forget awk - a pleasant, well behaved,
 > easily learned language.

Also, not very powerful, IMO. Great in combination with shell scripts,
tho'.

 > It's yet one more great Unix
 > tool for manipulating text and the odd system-admin
 > chore. It's been around alot longer than Ruby or Python
 > (maybe even longer than Perl), which is a plus.

Definitely longer than Perl - Perl gets many of its great ideas from
awk. I tend to think of Perl as awk on steroids.

But why is "been around longer" a plus?

-Micah