Perl vs Python

Hi all what do you think is better to learn? Also what do you think is more used in the real world?

 

Perl is in my mind on its way out. I happen to like Python quite alot. Its an elegant language that has a lot of possibilities not just web based apps.

 

I like python too, but I don't think Perl is going anywhere with such strong roots in the *nix community, its kinda like saying C/C++ is on its way out cuz of everything else we got 20 years later, yet there it is.

I guess Perl Vs Python is a lot like C++ vs Pascal.

In a web-app situation I prefer to use python via wsgi, for anything else it can be a console app, however there's plenty of python frameworks that allow you to create graphical (even OpenGL) interface applications on either windows or mac.

 

I prefer python its easy & useful

 

in large scale application perl needs proper care where python can be maintain easily.
for beginners python is the best language to learn .
but both are superb language

 

Indeed, both are relatively easy to learn, but my vote is for Python- flexible, powerful, and syntax is clever

 

I wish php is like python

 

Python is faster, more elegant, perl more powerful

 

I think it's worth learning they basics of both of them. Get as much exposure to multiple languages as you can. Personally I use Ruby almost exclusively now.

 

Perl, no question about it!!

 

I like Python more than Perl. 1 vote for Python.

 

Depends on how big of your program, I think Perl is more appropirate for short script especially relate with text manipulation. Perl's regular expression is built-in to the language which mean that you can do any web scraping easily with perl.

The big disadvantge of perl is it's readilbilty. If you are not the original coder of perl, it is very hard to understand than Python code.

For large program, I prefer Python over Perl.

 

Python is the way to go with its much easy to learn. but most web scripts are made in perl so if you are into those you have to learn it too.

 

If we were to go into specifics on "web scripts", PHP beats Perl by far in terms of "most web scripts are made in".

Also If you're familiar with Cpanel/Whm (course you would be, its the most popular control panel besides Plesk), you'll know that most of the upgrade tasks and modifications are handled by Python, not Perl as some people would expect. So technically if we look at most higher end VPS and Dedicated hosting on a linux operating system where we expect Perl to dominate, we find that Python is used more often under the hood than most people think.

 

Python is a language that google web server use a lot .
It must be very powerful although I have little idea of it.

 

Python Quotes ( http://www.python.org/about/quotes/ )

"Python is fast enough for our site and allows us to produce maintainable features in record times, with a minimum of developers," said Cuong Do, Software Architect, YouTube.com.

"Python has been an important part of Google since the beginning, and remains so as the system grows and evolves. Today dozens of Google engineers use Python, and we're looking for more people with skills in this language." said Peter Norvig, director of search quality at Google, Inc.

"Python enabled us to create EVE Online, a massive multiplayer game, in record time. The EVE Online server cluster runs over 50,000 simultaneous players in a shared space simulation, most of which is created in Python. The flexibilities of Python have enabled us to quickly improve the game experience based on player feedback" said Hilmar Veigar Petursson of CCP Games.

As well as this success story: http://www.python.org/about/success/ilm/

 

That is the point. Perl and python have differents purposes and strong/weak points. IF you will work with characters and strings than choose perl. Neither C, C++, Java, Pascal, Fortran, Cobol, Visual basic or python have to offer you what perl gives you in this respect. But if you need a language to light develop some web application then you can choose python. The learn curve for python is nice.

 

If this is what you think, read the post I did above mine, Industrial Light and Magic (the creators of Star Wars effects), wouldn't be using Python for the last 12 years if they thought it was only for light web development. Nor would the creates of EVE Online a massive multiplayer online game with over 50,000 simultaneous players.

 

My vote goes to Perl

 

I started out learning perl, then i gave python ago, but in the end i chose Perl as my offline scripting language of choice. If i had started with python maybe things would have been different.

The best thing to do is sample both languages and discover which syntax your more comfortable with.