python vs perl lines of code

[akameswaran at gmail.com]

THe interest, on my part, is more academic than practical.  I find
data, particularly "dirty" data very fascinating, and I like trying to
find ways to make useful statements when all you have is bad data.
Maybe a pipe-dream, but it's still fun to try.  So this little exercise
would be quite enjoyable - a horribly dirty data set that nobody thinks
could be useful.  The good guys always fall for the bad data!!
At an architectural or even development management perspective - there
is always someone, somewhere who wants to evaluate "developer
efficiency" or something similarly vague concept for which there aren't
good tools for evaluation.  Let's face it in the corp world these kind
of figures are sometimes percieved to have value.  SO if I were a corp
programmer in python and a manager says to me my output is way behind
the perl guys - I could pull this silly fact and .... well you see.

My quick comment about his code being torn apart by perl advocates was
mainly because his post seems to be complimentary to python - but your
right both sides would tear him apart.

ANd you took the flame bait so I'll respond :D
Perhaps - ALL OTHER THINGS BEINGS EQUAL - should better be read as
WRITTEN BY ME!!   For the most part I have found it easier to maintain
the shorter programs I have written and found it more time consuming to
maintain longer programs.  Really what's so dumb about this?  Have you
found, as a general trend you spend more time maintaining your shorter
programs?  I did say it was flame bait, and I never said the statement
is useful - all other things are never equal in the real world.   I am
constantly amused by how we, as programmers, spend so much time
quantifying everything else, react so negatively when anyone suggests
quantitative analysis of code for anything except execution time.

Course what interests me now - is how could we prove if my statement
was in fact very very dumb or not?  In all honesty I don't know, but it
sure tastes good grilled.