On Wednesday 04 June 2003 01:46, rex wrote:
Python versus Perl <snip> The major difference is conceptual simplicity. Python was built from the ground up as an extensible, structured, object-oriented language; it draws on languages such as C++ and Modula-3 for foundations.
This is true.
Perl was built originally as a replacement for UNIX shell languages, and draws on languages such as Bourne shell, sed, and awk for inspiration.
This is not true. The argument would be more appropriate that Perl was built from the ground up as a more accessible (hence its replication of some shell-like features and the ease of using regular expressions) tool than the C language from which much of its syntactical constructs are derived. It is far closer to C in concept than it is to shell languages. A more accurate summary of the differences would be to compare the use of C (with its analagous partner being Perl) versus the use of C++ (with its partner being Python). That difference plays itself out in the choice of one language (Python) being more useful for larger projects, due to its object-oriented foundation (OOP has always seemed much more contrived in Perl, much more natural in Python); similarly, Perl is much more useful than Python for smaller, more procedural tasks where one doesn't want to have to bother with the overhead of OOP. Each language has its merits.
The above is part of the language comparisons in _The Quick Python Book_.
The "Gospel according to Python," no doubt? : ) - Thomas Long -- Using SuSE Linux 8.2