Sorry if I sound offensive. I really used perl and python for almost 7 years. I get bad words when people praise python.

The reason is:

1) python is slower than perl for most tasks. Even if u speed it up using modules, there are perl alternatives there too. Nobody really cares about increasing speed for every program. Also, let me know where is unladen swallow going?

2) You can write clean, legible code in perl too.

3) Python OOP is not so good. Ruby has best OOP. Perl Moose is better than python OOP.

4) Too many half-baked python frameworks. But, I shud accept that SQLAlchemy is the best ORM of any language. Pylons is a good web framework among all python web frameworks.

5) Though python has modules in wider application areas, the total number of them is lesser than CPAN by atleast 2000 percent. (20X lesser modules). For these areas you can interface best tools for job with perl. (Example “R” statistical project)

6) Perl Catalyst is really cool framework. It improved a lot in the last 2 years.

7) U can do anything with perl but not the same with python easily. Take for example, many unsuccessful graphics projects for 3D. We did lot of 3D graphics with Perl + OpenGL and have satisfied customers.

Perl 6 syntax is much cleaner than perl 5. I am not worried about release getting late , since I can do most tasks with perl 5.X series. Till such time, python revises OOP, takes care of speed and includes functional programming modules I will use it less often.

How one sees things matters most. If one finds python good, he shud use it! But shudn’t advise that others are not having this or that….Only this made me offensive and write about python in a bit negative way.

Cheers,
Thota

I feel I use help(obj)/dir(obj) as much in Python, as I used perldoc in Perl. Most times the Python REPL saves me from looking at the source, where in Perl I always had my “vimod Module::Name” script nearby. Have to admit, there was a lot to hate for me in the beginning writing Python, but now I love almost everything I used to hate about it.

Still, I really miss CPAN, and Moose has some really neat stuff, makes Python OOP almost as bare bones as Perl’s.