The difference between Perl and Python?

This thread really gets my attention. And it is the reason I have just registered for an account here he he he

I just want to share my thought. IMO, I don’t like OOP. I find Perl is fun. The coding styles are individual’s preferences as long as the languages have enough capabilities and Perl, Python, Ruby, C, C++, Java, C#, … so so many languages have that. So it seems the languages of choices are of what people like.

I’ve hardly written more than 10 lines of perl, but when it comes to a comparison, I have the following views -

Perl -
Tough to maintain,
Rampant use of regexp and $_ special variable makes it little tough to read the code.

Python-
Easy to read and write,
Large number of frameworks available for web development - (flask, web.py, django, google appengine)
Easy to learn, equally easy to teach,
Plethora of modules available to do any kind of task.
Unit testing,
and many more

That is entirely due to your relative experience of the languages.

In general I find that those languages I use the most are the ones I find easiest to use. Between those I use equally infrequently I find those I have known for longer easier to use.

With regard PERL and Python there is also the difference in the type of language that each is and if one of those languages is the only one of that type that you have encountered then of course it will be harder to understand than if you know several other languages of the same type.

Can’t agree more to you. I always find PHP as the most comfortable than any other language I know for the mentioned reason.

I’ve hardly spoken more than 10 lines of French, but when it comes to a comparison, I have the following views -

French -
Tough to speak,
Rampant use of silent letters and accents everywhere makes it little tough to read the language.

Sure. And with less than 10 lines of French, it’s very likely that it was bad, hard-to-understand French. Exactly what one would expect, really, and that’s normal. Everything looks Greek to you if it’s unfamiliar.

Python-
Easy to read and write,
Large number of frameworks available for web development - (flask, web.py, django, google appengine)
Easy to learn, equally easy to teach,
Plethora of modules available to do any kind of task.
Unit testing,
and many more

Hahahahahahhaha
hahahahahahahaha
hgahahahahaha

Let’s try this again.
Perl-
Easy to read and write (IF YOU ACTUALLY KNOW PERL)
large number of frameworks available for web development - (catalyst, cgi::application/titanium, gentry, webgui, jifty, mojomojo, I’m missing about 20 more)
Easy to learn, equally easy to teach (Perl is like learning to drive: it’s easy to drive after you’ve learned to do it, but until you have, you drive badly… but nobody goes around complaining about how hard it is to learn to drive or teach driving)
Plethora of modules available to do any kind of task (hello CPAN)
Unit testing,
and many more

I find excessive whitespace HARDER to read but that’s me… there’s someone on this forum who finds syntax highlighting impossible to read, while for most of us it’s way easier. I indent my code, but a clean one-liner with a ternary operator (which when finally added to Python is done differently from other popular languages) is (for me) preferable to giving every word a new line and tabbed in.

There
        is such a
                thing       as         too       much
        white
space
mak    ing     things                  much                    harder                 to read.

I agree. Because Python uses whitespace as a part of the syntax it is much harder to work with in some ways than any language that ignores whitespace. A single space in the wrong place can change what the code does completely and may be even harder to spot than a misplaced comma or semi-colon (as might occur in some other languages).