[Tutor] Python Advocacy

[Timothy M. Brauch]

Here's my two cents on the subject.  A long time ago I learned programming 
on my Apple IIe based on DOS 3.0 (or was it 3.1?).  I learned by looking at 
the code other people had already written.  Then, I changed things to see 
what the difference was.  And, there were never any comments in these 
programs.  Nothing was better than starting a stock market game I had with 
one million dollars instead of one thousand.

Now, I know Python decent enough to be able to accomplish just about 
anything I want to do with it.  I have some knowledge of C/C++ and very 
little of Perl.  I think that I know Python best now because I can look at 
the code and understand what is happening and what happens if I change 
something.  Even ugly, uncommented code I can usually decipher (although I 
am still a little fuzzy on pickling and lamda functions).  On tests for my 
Comp Sci class on Python, there were even always questions such as "What is 
the output of the following code?"

That is why I think Python is better, at least to learn, than Perl.  
Someday I thought I might actually make an attempt at learning Perl for 
real, but if I can't just look at code and figure things out, it will make 
learning it a little harder for me.  I'm sure Perl has a good quality and 
if I look hard enough, one day I might find it.

However, right now I am spending my time learning some good ol' assembly 
language.

Tim Brauch