I come to praise .join, not to bury it...

Alex Martelli aleaxit at yahoo.com
Fri Mar 16 08:53:39 EST 2001


"Magnus Lie Hetland" <mlh at idi.ntnu.no> wrote in message
news:98srjf$fov$1 at tyfon.itea.ntnu.no...
    [snip]
> > Good thing (for me) that I eventually looked beyond the
> > pretty face, of course:-).
>
> Why? If you don't care about the pretty face, what are
> the advantages of Python as opposed to, say, Perl?

Transparent, predictable, repeatable, regular behavior,
WITHOUT a horde or three of 'convenient' ad-hoc cases.

> To me it would seem that syntax (sugar or not) is
> the main issue... Not that I've used Perl a lot, but
> it seems very much like Python with a lot of ugly bits
> thrown in...

If you HAD used Perl a lot (and I have) you might well
go beyond this "very surface" impression.  Basically,
Python goes a good way towards meeting the principle
of least astonishment.  A common and delightful experience
of the Python learner -- you learn about something new
but don't know the details yet -- you guess at those
details *and more often than not, you guess right*!

Perl seems to be designed by and for poets (not so far
off the mark...) who subscribe to Giovan Battista
Marino's 1619 manifesto of what poetry is all about:
    E` del poeta il fin la meraviglia,
    chi non sa far stupir vada alla striglia
("The purpose of the poet is astonishment", with a
strong recommendation to those who don't know how to
astonish that a preferable career path for them might
be as stable-lads).


Alex






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