alt Hacker NewsAs both a long time Perl and long time Python user who has seen both used in production, here are some of my thoughts:
Perl
- Was an easy jump from bash to Perl
- Perl never felt like it "got in the way"
- was WAY too easy to write "write only code"
- that being said, I learned Java first and most people found MY Perl code to be very legible
- regexes as first class citizen were amazing
- backwards compatible is GREAT for older systems still running Perl (looking at you banks and some hedge funds)
Python
- Forced indentation made it MUCH easier to read other people's code
- everything is an object from day one was much better than "bless" in Perl
- no standard way of setting up an environment for MANY years hurt
- sklearn and being taught in universities were real game changers
Replies
> - no standard way of setting up an environment for MANY years hurt
I will say coming from years of perl that python had a refreshing amount of "batteries included" via the standard library.
It was only rarely that my code needed "outside help", usually something like requests or numpy.
I suspect this is because I used python in the same environment as perl, automating unixy kinds of things.
I suspect "setting up an environment" is because python has been so successful, becoming an enormously broad general language.
Perl was my first scripting language, I occasionally need to run some of those old scripts (15-20 years old), they always run. Python scripts last 6-12 months.
Articles that poopoo on one language kind of have a dated all/nothing perspective.
Most languages have a decent enough framework or two that the differences between using them for different use cases may be closer than many folks realize vs whatever we hear about as the new hotness through the grapevine.
A mess can be made in a lot of languages, and a long time ago, it was even easier, except some of that code worked and it didn't get touched for a long time.
I never did much perl, what is the standard way to setup a perl environment? CPAN?
> no standard way of setting up an environment for MANY years hurt
Serious question: is that solved? I still see a forest of options, some of which depend on each other, and at last count my laptop has 38 python binaries. What's the standard way?