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Old 20th March 2009
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gosha View Post
As far as Python goes, I presently cannot understand the difference between the two, so maybe with time I will.
From the perspective of the English speaking hordes, Python's syntax is more "English"-like without the plethora of special characters & special nuisances required by other languages (specifically Perl). Some find this minimized amount of computer science cruft makes Python easier to write than other languages modeled on C (like Perl). Personally, I don't have such misgivings about Perl, but I know many that do.

How this "ease of use" translates to those speaking Chinese is unknown to me. Maybe the simplicity doesn't translate at all.

As for the goals of both languages, they are very similar, but Perl comes from a heritage inheriting the syntax & mindset of both shell & C programming. Python doesn't duplicate this lineage.

And for what it is worth, awk also inherits various idiosyncrasies from both shell & C programming. awk has a lot of power & served as a prominent scripting language alternative until Perl (& later Python...) arrived on the scene.
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