Trying to decide between PHP and Python

[Grant Edwards]

On 2011-01-05, Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.com.pl> wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Jan 2011, Roy Smith wrote:
>> Alan Meyer <ameyer2 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> On 1/4/2011 4:22 PM, Google Poster wrote:
>>> 
>>>> The syntax reminds me of Lots of Interspersed Silly Parentheses
>>>> (L.I.S.P.), but without the parentheses.
>>> 
>>> I haven't heard that version before.  The one I heard was:
>>> 
>>> "Lots of Irritating Single Parentheses".
>> 
>> Long Involved Stupid Parentheses.
>
> Heh. One day, guys, when you have nothing better to do, try writing a 
> parser for Lisp-like language (Common Lisp, Scheme, whatever). After that, 
> do the same with some other language of your preference (Python, Java, 
> whatever). Compare time and code spent...

I've heard that justification many times, but I think it's 200%
specious.

 1) How often is a compiler for language X written?

 2) How often is source code written in language X?

 3) How often is that source code in language X read/modified?

If you compare those numbers you'll realize that optimizing for case 1
at the expense of cases 2 & 3 is just plain stupid.  Perhaps there is
somebody on the planet who finds Lisp as easy to read/modify as
Python, but I've never met him/her and never have you...

Optimizing a language for the ease of the compiler writer is like
saying, sure, that car is expensive to buy, expensive to run, doesn't
work well, and tends to kill a lot of people, but it took less time to
design!

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! I know things about
                                  at               TROY DONAHUE that can't
                              gmail.com            even be PRINTED!!