Re: About Python Was: CL/REXX Was: valid 5250 character set

Hello John,

Am 07.06.2022 um 05:53 schrieb John Yeung <gallium.arsenide@xxxxxxxxx>:

I think the situation was the same everywhere, not just Europe. But we're no longer in the early heydays, and haven't been for many years. Depending on how you define "early heydays", one could argue that CGI was only popular then, and has long since been out of favor.

Yes, it has been replaced very quickly by PHP, starting the LAMP solution popping up everywhere. Which was a great thing to help establish OpenSource broadly through all companies. I'm sure, IBM would not have embraced FOSS without this prior unfolding of events.

To me, PHP brought a big improvement to quickly hammer out some interactive web forms and static HTML intermixed. But it also gave way to sloppy "good enough" development without a clear distinction between function and presentation. For small projects, this might have been no big deal. But sometimes, projects expand.

What I wanted to say: I fail to see a clear "pro" for learning a new language syntax (Python) over Perl which largely can be written to look like well-established C code. Add the security implications of "download and use" third party stuff which still seems to be more apparent with Python than with the many more already RPMiefied (or DEBified) Perl packages. At least this is my impression from looking not too closely.

On the other hand, from my own, and colleague's experiences, Perl has been Linux Sysadmin's Choice for automating things which become too cumbersome (or slow-running) in shell for a long time.

You mean it *had* been the sysadmin's choice.

Depends where you look. On this side of the pond, and with my experience, things are a bit more traditional outside of cool and hip startups.

There was a poll from German Magazine c't about corporate usage of Python in April.
38%: as a secondary language in projects
27%: no Python
18%: as primary language in projects
17%: no Answer.

"No reason to use python" has been given quite often. For once because introducing yet another language into the pool doesn't help with overall complexity, and also for compliance reasons. Also, "problems with updates" was a frequent reason to not use Python. Others argued that there is no apparent benefit compared to the existing languages being used (Java, Perl, PHP).

In a way, this partly reinforces my own views.

I guess Python must have some advantages over Perl, but I just can't see it. :-)

There is this famous webcomic:

https://xkcd.com/353/

Note that the hover text says "I wrote 20 short programs in Python yesterday. It was wonderful. Perl, I'm leaving you."

Basically, if you ask almost anyone who knows both Perl and Python, they will choose Python. And this has been the case for a long time. (Note that the webcomic cited above appeared in 2007.)

Interesting remark.

The advantages of Python are numerous. First and foremost, as a general-purpose programming language, its syntax is near-universally regarded as far more readable.

I'm very attached to C, maybe this is one of the reasons I disagree with this claim.

But if you have the time and brainpower to learn just one language, Python is both easier and more broadly useful.

Mh, you have a point. But apart from xkcd, I (being happy with Perl) still fail to see a compelling reason to switch to Python. And apparently I'm not alone, see the poll above. :-)

:wq! PoC