sobering observation, python vs. perl

[Charles T. Smith]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2016 19:08:58 +0200, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:

> "Charles T. Smith" <cts.private.yahoo at gmail.com>:
> 

> 
> Compare Perl (<URL: http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=98357>):
> 
>    my $str = "I have a dream";
>    my $find = "have";
>    my $replace = "had";
>    $find = quotemeta $find; # escape regex metachars if present
>    $str =~ s/$find/$replace/g;
>    print $str;
> 
> with Python:
> 
>    print("I have a dream".replace("have", "had"))
> 
> 
> Marko

Uh... that perl is way over my head.  I admit though, that perl's
powerful substitute command is also clumsy.  The best I can do
right now is:

$v =  "I have a dream\n";
$v =~ s/have/had/;
print $v

One of the ugliest things about perl are the "silly" type
prefixes ($, @, %).  But in a python project I'm doing now,
I realized an important advantage that they bring...

I want to be able to initialize msgs to communicate with
C.  Ideally, I'd to just specify the path to an equivalent
python instance but all intermediate instances have to
already exist - python does not have autovivication.
I implemented it but only up until the leaf node - because
python doesn't know their types.  Perl can do that, because the
prefix tells it the type.

But, don't get me wrong, coding in python is a JOY!