Deposing Dictators

[Peter Hansen]

Robin Becker wrote:
> In Python Land, the language may win the technical battle, but lose the
> war. Python still loses against perl at simple tasks.

No, it doesn't.

> If, as I claim, Python  wins or loses on its usefulness at real
> programming tasks then eventually it must improve either real
> performance or real utility.

Oh, wait, you are judging "wins" and "loses" on the scale of 
performance.  It looked like a more general claim at first... :)

In my books, the difference in performance between Perl and Python
is insignificantly large.

The difference in readability (and thus ease of maintenance and
ease of developing robust code) is sufficiently large to outweigh
any performance differences.

Obviously, the question of whether Python wins or loses, against
Perl or any other language, is largely a matter of opinion. 
As long as the performance is not an order of magnitude slower
for my kind of application, I have zero reason to look enviously
at Perl users...

-- 
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Peter Hansen, P.Eng.
peter at engcorp.com