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Why should I switch to Python?

Aahz Maruch aahz at netcom.com
Sun Apr 2 13:18:24 EDT 2000 
In article <secfidq8921 at corp.supernews.com>,
Aaron Turner  <aturner_ at _pobox.com> wrote:
>
>Honestly the more I reasearch, the more it seems that it's purely 
>a matter of taste.  If you like Perl, there's nothing inherient about
>Python that makes it better.   Sorry if this just sounds like a troll, but
>I'm really trying to get a feel about something I know nothing about 
>from personal experiance.
>
>Basically if you know both languages, and were planning a mid-sized 
>project, why would you choose Python?  It's hard to take my friend
>seriously in his evaluation when he says he'd rather do this project
>in C++  than in Perl (especially when he doesn't know Perl).

As a person who has now used Perl and Python for roughly equal amounts
of time (more than a year), I think the most important distinction is
the way that Perl's TMTOWTDI destroys multi-person projects.  Not just
at the pretty-printing level, but all the way up to module layout and
general code design.

Perl is the result of attempting to make code "readable" by combining
the syntax and semantics of popular Unix utilities.  Python is the
result of attempting to make code readable by designing a language based
on real programming usability studies.  If you're already a Unix shell
hacker, Perl is likely to make you more immediately productive, but it
simply doesn't scale.  In all other cases, I think Python wins.
--
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