Derek Fountain
"Python is what Perl should have been."
The Perl6 team are currently redesigning the base language and they aren't making it look like Python.
This is a surprise? Betting on a tiger becoming spotted is not a good bet.
A rough metric: How many people have switched from Perl to Python. A: Many. How many people have voluntarily switched from Python to Perl? A: One was reported, but upon investigation, he could not be found. ;)
We look forward to seeing the evidence to support these two statements. :o)
One could do a poll in the relevant newsgroups. I'm too lazy.
Python doesn't have anywhere near the depth of module support that Perl has.
Have you run into a situation where there is no appropriate module for Python but there is for Perl? Of course such situations are possible, but I wonder how often they occur?
The above is part of the language comparisons in _The Quick Python Book_.
...and is therefore completely and totally biased.
He was fluent in Perl and gave it up for Python. Then he wrote a book about Python. Does that make his viewpoint worthless? I don't think so.
Python has much better structure than Perl, and therefore makes a better language for writing large programs and applications. Perl is much tighter, and has a much more efficient syntax. That makes it harder to master, but also makes it a much more efficient tool for a programmer who needs to solve a specific limited problem quickly. I've used Perl for years and Python quite a lot more recently. So far, IMHO, the only thing which Python is obviously better at is building GUI based applications. Python/Qt is a superb combination of power and simple convenience. Python was also much easier to learn.
"Tight" syntax facilitates writing unmaintainable code. It's excellent for throw-away scripts, though, and Harms says as much in his book.
The answer to the original poster's question, though, is still Tcl. For simplicity and power for solving general problems, as well as GUI work, it leaves both Perl and Python standing.
I don't follow this conclusion because, IMO, the poster didn't give enough information to conclude that Tcl is his best choice. What if he needs more than small programs? Tcl then becomes a suboptimal choice. Harms ranks 7 languages in 7 categories, and the only 2 where Tcl ranked above Python is in GUI coding and development environment. Python ranked above Tcl in 3. Do you disagree with his assessment? The bottom line for me is that the original poster should look at Perl, Python, and Tcl and make his own choice. -rex