Why use Python when we've got Perl?
Tom Christiansen
shoved at us. The flame war begun in comp.lang.perl.misc isn't doing
anyone any good, and then coming over to comp.lang.python to stir up the
shock troops to send in a few commandos is even worse. I don't think
you'd like it if we in comp.lang.perl.misc sent 100,000 script kiddies
over to comp.lang.python to rant at you guys about how K31L they though
Perl was and how L@M3 they thought Python was.
Do you want to learn or do you want to flame? Learn? Really? Ok, here's
all you have to do. Go write a medium-sized program comprising many
hundreds of lines, broken up into several files and selectively imported,
but do so in whichever language you know the *least*. That's the way
to learn, not though wars. There's no way we can learn from one another
by flaming. And there's plenty to learn. Everyone should do this.
Please and thank you.
--tom
--
Anyone can be taught to sculpt.
Michaelangleo would have had to have been taught how not to.
The same is true of great programmers.
"36 percent of the American Public believes that boiling radioactive milk
Friedrich Dominicus
>
> Unbelievably stupid subject, eh?
Maybe.
> I certainly thought so when it was
> shoved at us. The flame war begun in comp.lang.perl.misc isn't doing
> anyone any good, and then coming over to comp.lang.python to stir up the
> shock troops to send in a few commandos is even worse.
I don't have seen flamewar. But this possibly will change...
> Do you want to learn or do you want to flame? Learn? Really? Ok, here's
> all you have to do. Go write a medium-sized program comprising many
> hundreds of lines, broken up into several files and selectively imported,
> but do so in whichever language you know the *least*.
I thinks this is good advice but if you use a language for small
projects like scripts normally are. you don't need hundred of lines,
different files etc. Than you possibly need another langauge than for
larger projects. So the advice if good for large programs but not for
small programs.
So the best one can do is knowing what you're going to do. And choose
the tool you need than accordingly. Everyone is somewaht biased and has
his/her favourite language. So am I. I just have had a look at perl
wrote some lines, I then saw Python I liked it more because I like
Eiffel. And Python is the closest to Eiffel on scripting languages I
know.
I then read books about the other side. The other side is functional
programming. I had a look at haskell, OCAML and the like. I then read
about Scheme and Lisp. I did not like that languages because of their
heavy use of (()) What a mess just don't try to learn something because
on first sight you don't like it. I than began rewritting scripts
written vor Bourne-Shell, Python and awk to Scheme. And guess what
happened, I begin to like Scheme.
If I will learn Scheme a bit better, I possibly will use it for
scripting and will learn Common Lisp for larger scale programmming.
This although I like Eiffel very much, one of the best OO-languages IMO.
It seemed to me that CL is a more advanced as Eiffel is. There are
modules available which you can use for proving your software correct
and this is done in Common Lisp. In Eiffel I state what I want to be
correct in CL I get an machine proved prove that is is correct!!. This
is quite amazing. Sometimes I got the impression that the FPlers have
been, where the OOLers or imperative programmers are heading.
Of course YMMV. This is up to you. But I would suggest learning at least
one FP language is one of the best things a programmer can do. Possibly
there are other suprises around maybe Prolog would be another good idea?
One personal opinion about Perl and Python. I think they are somewhat
very simular. If one prefers on over the other, that't quite fine. Both
Python and Perl are IMO more or less imperative languages there were
discussion in both groups about the FP parts in both, but most code I
read is written in an imperative style. I possibly havn't read enough to
get the real usage. Someone else might.
Last but not least I think Perl more tightly intervened with Unix, the
usage of one-liners in Perl is very much like just using another element
in a pipe I think Python with it's more object-oriented approach can't
cope with Perl here.
That's it for today. I hope I havn't made a flame out of it, and
hopefully others won't do that.
Regards
Friedrich
Miles Egan
> one FP language is one of the best things a programmer can do. Possibly
> there are other suprises around maybe Prolog would be another good idea?
This is excellent advice. Even if you never write a line of production
code in Scheme or ML, studying these languages can be very
enlightening. Python and Perl are more alike than different in the
grander family of programming languages. I particularly recommend "The
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" by Abelson and
Sussman. I'm still blown away by the simplicity of their implementation
of a Scheme evaluator.
miles
Tom Christiansen
In comp.lang.perl.misc, Friedrich...@inka.de writes:
:One personal opinion about Perl and Python. I think they are somewhat
:very similar.
Indeed. This reminds me of a remark by Dennis Ritchie: "People don't
realize that Pascal and C are really the same language, and that there
are a lot of *other* languages out there."
Being exposed to Lisp or Scheme, to ML, and to Prolog can bring this point
of Dennis's--which in a sense echoes your own, or vice versa--into sharp
focus and thereby greatly expand one's horizons, much to the over-all
benefit of the curious programmer.
:Last but not least I think Perl more tightly intervened with Unix,
Certainly Perl's hooks into Unix are stronger than are its hooks for
proprietary systems from Microsoft, Apple, or the erstwhile DEC, which
even if existent, tend to manifest themselves as add-on modules rather
than as original core functionality. This of course makes perfect
historical sense, given the natal environment and concomitant problem
domain.
Nevertheless, "Perl: The Programmer's Companion" by Nigel Chapman
(whose ambiguously worded title actually posits Perl as a companion
of programmers) does a commendable job of providing a solid technical
foundation for the language with nary a whit of system-specific arcana.
This small and inexpensive volume (in which I aver no personal interest)
stands head and shoulders above all others as the best introductory Perl
book, especially for real programmers such as yourself. Script kiddies,
tape operators, and all such ilk occasionally merit other recommendations,
some of which occasionally include rather than a book title something
on the order of, "Hey kid, hurry up with those french fries!" :-)
--tom
--
sv_magic(sv, Nullsv, 'B', Nullch, 0); /* deep magic */
--Larry Wall, from util.c in the v5.0 perl distribution
the...@my-deja.com
Tom Christiansen <tch...@mox.perl.com> wrote:
> Unbelievably stupid subject, eh? I certainly thought so when it was
> shoved at us. The flame war begun in comp.lang.perl.misc isn't doing
> anyone any good, and then coming over to comp.lang.python to stir up
the
> you'd like it if we in comp.lang.perl.misc sent 100,000 script kiddies
> over to comp.lang.python to rant at you guys about how K31L they
though
> Perl was and how L@M3 they thought Python was.
>
I've been reading that flame war but I noticed that it is the Perl
people, for the most part, that have donned the asbestos undies and
charged up their flame throwers (this isn't without exception, of
course). The Python people have remained relitively calm (the original
post was cross-posted, remember?).
Although Perl and Python, as languages, are very similar, the culture
that surrounds the two languages are quite different. I know when I've
asked someone for help in either Python or Perl, the Python people are
definitely the most helpful. I think I can safely say, that the Perl
community is quite arrogant, especially to people new to it. In Python,
I haven't found that to be the case at all - in fact, quite the
opposite. They are very helpful in helping out and leading people in
the right direction. For example: I emailed an another of one Perl
module for help in something and his reply was, "Maybe you should learn
Perl better", nevermind the fact that what I was trying to do was
undocumented. For help with a Python module, the author told me, "The
problem here is that you are new to Python and my documentation sucks,
so here is how you do it . . ." The funny part was, *his* documentation
was better then the Perl documentation for the module discussed above.
And, yes, I do program in both, though most often I choose Perl.
However, when I look at some of my dusty Perl programs, I think "what
the f*** was I doing?" and it takes me a while to dig through it and
figure it out. That situation is almost impossible with Python - the
way it has to be structured makes far more readable code. In that
respect, Python is better.
Yes, Tom, "neatness" may be subjective, but in any language, my
handwriting is terrible. I may write in English but some may say it
looks like Arabic. However there isn't a Arab or an American that can
make heads or tails of it. Even me sometimes . . .
>
> Please and thank you.
And thank you.
>
> --tom
>
- mikeh
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Robin Becker
to defending the perl language (I once described perl as being like awk
on steroids and lsd). They probably win on numbers who use it and on the
module CPAN thing. They're certainly more arrogant and less helpful than
some other communities. There are certainly some programmers who want to
be wizards at arcania; it's a job defense mechanism for one thing. I
think excellers and sqllers may be similar although I'm certainly not
good enough at either to really criticise.
--
Robin Becker
Tom Christiansen
In comp.lang.python,
Robin Becker <ro...@jessikat.demon.co.uk> writes:
:Lets face it; the perlers have a fairly hopeless position when it comes
:to defending the perl language
I'm going to pretend you didn't just now so egregiously underestimate
both the acumen and the tenacity of those whom you don't know, for
any other response would lead inexorably to ratholes so tortuous as to
captivate Borges, so black as to plunge Pollyanna into deepest despair.
For your own personal benefit, however, you might in the future take
some care to avoid repeating that particular stultiloquy. :-)
--tom
--
"Espousing the eponymous /cgi-bin/perl.exe?FMH.pl execution model is like
reading a suicide note -- three days too late."
--Tom Christiansen <tch...@mox.perl.com>
Tom Christiansen
In comp.lang.perl.misc, the...@my-deja.com writes:
:Although Perl and Python, as languages, are very similar, the culture
:that surrounds the two languages are quite different. I know when I've
:asked someone for help in either Python or Perl, the Python people are
:definitely the most helpful. I think I can safely say, that the Perl
:community is quite arrogant, especially to people new to it.
It certainly didn't start out that way, and for many years Perl was
famous for being precisely exactly the opposite of hostile. It was
about a programming community of mutual benefit.
Think back to the 80s and early 90s. The change, if it really happened,
came with the upty-gazillion CGI script kiddies who couldn't program
2+2, yet who wanted *us* to write *them* these persistent, encrypted,
crossplatform, multiscreen shopping carts for e-commerce, complete with
dynamically-generated animated vanity counters, each and every time
they stepped up to the feeder.
As a result, There's not much left of a spirit of a programming community
of mutual benefit when it becomes numerically dominated by people who
don't want to study or to work or EVEN TO PROGRAM, and who all seem to
think you owe them something.
When > 90% of the newsgroup postings are ill-formatted garbledy-gook
that also fall into the category of not having bothered to have first
checked the online docs or faqs that come with Perl, these things add up.
And eventually, it risks breaking our spirit. There's just no way to deal
with the never-ending onslaught of non-programmer CGI script kiddies, who
seem to outnumber the rest of us zillions to one.
So what do you do? You either bail out of this untenable situation, as
Larry Wall has done, or else "customer-service battle fatigue" sets in.
When that happens, people end up getting snapped at, sometimes mistaking
an honest learner for yet another beggar looking for handouts. I dare
say this would happen even in the best of families, given equivalent
circumstances. I do think that earnest individuals seriously wanting
to work hard are still given the same helping hand they always got.
Be careful what you wish for.
--tom
--
Emacs is a fine operating system, but I still prefer Unix. -me
I R A Darth Aggie
<7p49l5$uv7$1...@nnrp1.deja.com> wrote:
+ I've been reading that flame war
I've skipped the latest installment of 142 posts...
+ but I noticed that it is the Perl
+ people, for the most part, that have donned the asbestos undies and
+ charged up their flame throwers
Ummm...with a subject line like "Why use Perl when we've got Python?"
Or would you say that such a subject is non-inflamatory?
James
--
Consulting Minister for Consultants, DNRC
The Bill of Rights is paid in Responsibilities - Jean McGuire
To cure your perl CGI problems, please look at:
<url:http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html>
Aahz Maruch
In article <37b6...@cs.colorado.edu>,
Tom Christiansen <tch...@mox.perl.com> wrote:
>
>So what do you do? You either bail out of this untenable situation, as
>Larry Wall has done, or else "customer-service battle fatigue" sets in.
>When that happens, people end up getting snapped at, sometimes mistaking
>an honest learner for yet another beggar looking for handouts. I dare
>say this would happen even in the best of families, given equivalent
>circumstances. I do think that earnest individuals seriously wanting
>to work hard are still given the same helping hand they always got.
I've snipped the part of the post that I mostly agree with to disagree
somewhat with that last sentence. Without going into details, there
were a couple of module maintainers who treated me somewhat roughly.
--
--- Aahz (@netcom.com)
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het <*> http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 (if you want to know, do some research)
Andy Leighton
>on steroids and lsd). They probably win on numbers who use it and on the
>module CPAN thing.
The CPAN repository for modules is a win for Perl. But I also wouldn't
underestimate some of Perl's other nice features like perldoc and MakeMaker.
I must admit I do use both languages (although I am only learning Python),
and I find that when I use Perl it is too easy to fall into bad habits,
and I tend to spend a lengthy session refactoring my Perl programs after
writing them.
--
Andy Leighton => an...@azaal.dircon.co.uk
"... January is your third most common month for madness" - _Sarah Canary_
Michael Rubenstein
<tch...@mox.perl.com> wrote:
>Think back to the 80s and early 90s. The change, if it really happened,
>came with the upty-gazillion CGI script kiddies who couldn't program
>2+2, yet who wanted *us* to write *them* these persistent, encrypted,
>crossplatform, multiscreen shopping carts for e-commerce, complete with
>dynamically-generated animated vanity counters, each and every time
>they stepped up to the feeder.
>
>As a result, There's not much left of a spirit of a programming community
>of mutual benefit when it becomes numerically dominated by people who
>don't want to study or to work or EVEN TO PROGRAM, and who all seem to
>think you owe them something.
Anyone in comp.lang.python who is starting to feel sorry for the
beleaguered perl experts should read comp.lang.perl.misc.
Don't miss the thread (checking Perl offline) in which Tom goes
after one of these "CGI script kiddies" who has the audacity to
use the word "off-line" to mean not on the network and "upload"
to mean copy to the server (both usages are correct according to
the OED).
Make sure you check out the spelling and grammar from the
regulars. Many of them are fond of insulting beginners for not
reading news.announce.newusers but feel free to ignore what the
announcements say about spelling and grammar flames. Make sure
you check out the thread (Nastiness contrary to the spirit of
perl?) in which one of the regulars feels it necessary to attack
someone for using the word "ditto" to mean "I agree" (a
reasonable use of the word according to the OED).
Nor should you miss the current thread in which a number of
regulars register their reaction to Tom's harrassing someone with
email (HARASSMENT -- Monthly Autoemail) because Tom doesn't
approve of his method of quoting.
The problem in comp.lang.perl.misc is not the beginners -- it is
the regulars.
Robin Becker
> [courtesy cc of this posting mailed to cited author]
>
> Robin Becker <ro...@jessikat.demon.co.uk> writes:
>:Lets face it; the perlers have a fairly hopeless position when it comes
>:to defending the perl language
>
>I'm going to pretend you didn't just now so egregiously underestimate
>both the acumen and the tenacity of those whom you don't know, for
>any other response would lead inexorably to ratholes so tortuous as to
>captivate Borges, so black as to plunge Pollyanna into deepest despair.
>For your own personal benefit, however, you might in the future take
>some care to avoid repeating that particular stultiloquy. :-)
>
>--tom
shame. I guess all these years you've been casting perls before this
swine. Flame on if that's what you like.
--
Robin Becker
Aahz Maruch
Robin Becker <ro...@jessikat.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Lets face it; the perlers have a fairly hopeless position when it comes
>on steroids and lsd).
Not really. While there's lots to dislike about Perl, there's also some
things it does very nicely. For example, it'd be really cool in Python
if I defined a function foo() and it could distinguish between each of
the following:
x = foo()
y = [ foo() ]
z = { foo() }
Basic Perl is in some ways easier to pick up than Python for someone who
is a sysadmin but not a programmer. Also, while it's easier to write
good Python programs, it's easier to debug Perl programs -- I'm not
counting IDLE because it requires a GUI.
Arguing over whether Python is "better" than Perl is like arguing over
whether European food is better than Asian.
James Logajan
self-respecting arms merchant to sell to both sides; there just isn't
anything to sell.)
I suspect that computer language wars arise for some of the same reasons
some real wars arise: a battle over finite resources. In this case, the
finite resource is a programmer's time. I know I don't have time to find the
"Holy Grail" (ahem, sorry!) of languages by learning every language ever
invented. Once I've somehow settled on a language and spent an irretrievable
fraction of my life learning it, I get irritable when someone tells me I
have to do that process over again. For me, the interest in computer
languages per se passed a decade and a half ago. I've learned and glanced at
(and forgotten) far too many languages and notations (at least 22, probably
more). It is a tiny subset of all the languages that have been commercially
released, but to my mind is too bloody much. Bottom line for me (and I
suspect for others) is: Please don't ask me to change from X to Y unless you
have a damn good reason; my time is precious.
But sometimes people have to discard something that works perfectly fine and
learn another language, simply because they move into a group that mandates
the use of something else. Then the irritation and fight over languages
happens. There is no avoiding it I think, so these languages wars will go on
for as long as there are multiple languages (and anyone who thinks that will
change is dreaming).
Magnus L. Hetland
> In article <2GJsiHAN...@jessikat.demon.co.uk>,
> Robin Becker <ro...@jessikat.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[...]
>
> x = foo()
> y = [ foo() ]
> z = { foo() }
Well... At least it can distinguish the first two :)
>
> Basic Perl is in some ways easier to pick up than Python for someone who
> is a sysadmin but not a programmer.
Hm. That sounds a bit strange to me... Do you mean because it looks a
bit like awk and things like that?
> Also, while it's easier to write
> good Python programs, it's easier to debug Perl programs
Really? I don't see why... Perhaps it a personal thing? I would think
that readability is an important thing when it comes to debugging - at
least it is for me - and it seems to me that readability is a much
higher priority in Python than in Perl. (There is no dissent about
that, is there?)
> Arguing over whether Python is "better" than Perl is like arguing over
> whether European food is better than Asian.
Well - that is true, in a sense. But as long as there are no agreed
upon objective criteria to judge by, that would be true of all
discussions - no? And if there were clear criteria, the discussion
would easily be put to rest... Or perhaps this is a simplification.
Perhaps it would be more interesting in arguing over the underlying
values instead of their expression in these languages? Some people
like clarity and readability, while others like flexibility and
terseness. I suspect some people like both - in different situations.
So, maybe we should discuss which situations demand which, so that we
might become more enlightened in the matters of choosing our
programming tools to suit our needs?
advocacy-sucks-but-it-is-cool-nonetheless'ly yours - Magnus
--
Magnus Making no sound / Yet smouldering with passion
Lie The firefly is still sadder / Than the moaning insect
Hetland : Minamoto Shigeyuki
Robin Becker
<mik...@ix.netcom.com> writes
...
>The problem in comp.lang.perl.misc is not the beginners -- it is
>the regulars.
just not stupid/arrogant enough to proselytise.
--
Robin Becker
Tim Peters
> ...
> Arguing over whether Python is "better" than Perl is like arguing
> over whether European food is better than Asian.
Exactly so! Everyone knows Asian food is better, but it's not polite to say
so in mixed company.
gastrowinkingly y'rs - tim
Skip Montanaro
Aahz> disagree somewhat with that last sentence. Without going into
Aahz> details, there were a couple of module maintainers who treated me
Aahz> somewhat roughly.
It cuts both ways I guess. I have next to no real Perl experience but when
I needed help with the Perl port of XML-RPC, Ken MacLeod was extremely
helpful. Not to belabor the point, but Tom C. is also a welcome addition to
c.l.p when he drops by.
Skip Montanaro | http://www.mojam.com/
sk...@mojam.com | http://www.musi-cal.com/~skip/
847-971-7098
Skip Montanaro
Tom> non-programmer CGI script kiddies, who seem to outnumber the rest
Tom> of us zillions to one.
You could tell them that CGI programming is easier in Python. In fact, the
bot that responds to first posts to c.l.p.m could do this... ;-)
Ian Clarke
> Unbelievably stupid subject, eh?
Yes, but there is a subtle difference between this and my original
subject of "Why use Perl when we've got Python?". One difference
between Python and Perl is that Perl was already around when Python was
first created. Thus, to suggest that Python is unnecessary given the
fact that we have Perl is saying that Guido wasted his time in creating
Python. The suggestion that Perl could be superseded by Python (which
is a more recently conceived language) is less ridiculous.
Perhaps my original subject was designed to grab people's attention, but
the body of the message indicated that I was merely seeking knowledge
about Perl from those who know more than me. If the quality of a post
is to be determined solely by its subject, then you are just as guilty
as you perceive me to be (for posting with this subject).
> I certainly thought so when it was
> shoved at us. The flame war begun in comp.lang.perl.misc isn't doing
> anyone any good, and then coming over to comp.lang.python to stir up the
> shock troops to send in a few commandos is even worse. I don't think
> you'd like it if we in comp.lang.perl.misc sent 100,000 script kiddies
> over to comp.lang.python to rant at you guys about how K31L they though
> Perl was and how L@M3 they thought Python was.
Actually of all the replies to my posts, yours were the only to
descended into personal insults, even as I did my best to remain polite
and respectful for someone I don't know. Particularly amusing that you
(apparently) have killfiled my emails when it was you who started carbon
copying my email address in your replies.
As for the "flame war" doing nobody any good, I think it has answered my
original question quite nicely, and probably educated many about the
pros and cons of Perl versus Python.
Ian.
> Do you want to learn or do you want to flame? Learn? Really? Ok, here's
> all you have to do. Go write a medium-sized program comprising many
> hundreds of lines, broken up into several files and selectively imported,
> but do so in whichever language you know the *least*. That's the way
> to learn, not though wars. There's no way we can learn from one another
> by flaming. And there's plenty to learn. Everyone should do this.
As I have said before - if your only advice is "Go find out yourself, I
can't be bothered to tell you", then perhaps you should refrain from
posting.
Ian.
Ian Clarke
> The problem in comp.lang.perl.misc is not the beginners -- it is
> the regulars.
I agree completely. As the person who started this whole thing
(sheepish grin) the regulars, Tom in particular, has been rude, and
resorted to personal insults on a number of occasions, even while I
remained calm and polite. He repeatedly accuses me of being a troll and
inciting flames (despite the fact that he was the only one flaming!).
To top it all off, having posted numerous "courtesy" copies of his
newsgroup postings to my email address, to which I replied on-subject
and politely, he then emailed me an email saying that I had been
killfiled! A rather pathetic way to get the last word in my opinion.
Lucky I do not judge Perl on the quality of their newsgroup regulars.
Ian.
Russ Allbery
> I agree completely. As the person who started this whole thing
> (sheepish grin) the regulars, Tom in particular, has been rude, and
> resorted to personal insults on a number of occasions, even while I
> remained calm and polite. He repeatedly accuses me of being a troll and
> inciting flames (despite the fact that he was the only one flaming!).
However rude Tom has been, apply a little bit of logic to what you're
doing. Crossposting between Python and Perl newsgroups is inciting
flames. Starting threads with the topic "Why use Python when we've got
Perl?" or "Why use Perl when we've got Python?" or the like is inciting
flames. Starting threads about Python in a Perl newsgroup or Perl in a
Python newsgroup is inciting flames.
Sometimes it's worth putting up with the flames in order to make a point
or to get some useful information, and I think there's been some useful
and interesting information in this thread. But please take some personal
responsibility for your actions.
comp.lang.perl.misc is primarily for talking about Perl, not trying to
defend Perl to a Python advocate. I'm sure the converse is true of
comp.lang.python. Someone who starts a language advocacy flamewar and
then plays innocent about it isn't exactly holding the moral high ground.
--
#!/usr/bin/perl -- Russ Allbery, Just Another Perl Hacker
$^=q;@!>~|{>krw>yn{u<$$<[~||<Juukn{=,<S~|}<Jwx}qn{<Yn{u<Qjltn{ > 0gFzD gD,
00Fz, 0,,( 0hF 0g)F/=, 0> "L$/GEIFewe{,$/ 0C$~> "@=,m,|,(e 0.), 01,pnn,y{
rw} >;,$0=q,$,,($_=$^)=~y,$/ C-~><@=\n\r,-~$:-u/ #y,d,s,(\$.),$1,gee,print
Ian Clarke
Ok, so your point is that I was inciting flames, but that is not in
itself a bad thing. I can live with that.
> comp.lang.perl.misc is primarily for talking about Perl, not trying to
> defend Perl to a Python advocate. I'm sure the converse is true of
> comp.lang.python. Someone who starts a language advocacy flamewar and
> then plays innocent about it isn't exactly holding the moral high ground.
I never claimed to be perfect, Tom's post just angered me as he was
accusing me of fanning the flames where as in he was contributing much
more to the whole thing than I was.
Ian.
Robin Becker
<I.Cl...@strs.co.uk> writes
tempting.
--
Robin Becker
Aahz Maruch
Ian Clarke <I.Cl...@strs.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Ok, so your point is that I was inciting flames, but that is not in
>itself a bad thing. I can live with that.
Yes, it is a bad thing. It may sometimes be a necessary thing, but
inciting flames is always bad.
Jerome Kalifa
"Tim Peters" <tim...@email.msn.com> writes:
> [Aahz Maruch]
> > ...
> > Arguing over whether Python is "better" than Perl is like arguing
> > over whether European food is better than Asian.
>
> Exactly so! Everyone knows Asian food is better, but it's not polite to say
> so in mixed company.
>
Gasp, shocking! 'nearly died of heart attack when reading that. Nobody
else than Americans would dare writing such other-simplifying
absurdities :-) <--- smiley, don't shoot, we Europeans usually don't
have firearms :-) <--- second smiley.
Indeed, the comparison is silly, but for a different reason : Asian
food, European food... this doesn't mean anything at all! What's in
common between Japanese, Chinese and Cambodian foods, or between
German, English, Spanish and Italian foods? Nothing. BTW, as a biased
arrogant French, I'm not allowed to judge the food of my country, but
of course you know what I think :-)
> gastrowinkingly y'rs - tim
>
Veau Marengot rules.
--
Jerome Kalifa
Centre de Mathematiques Appliquees, Ecole Polytechnique.
91128 Palaiseau Cedex, France. (33)169333981
Michael Hudson
[schnupp]
> Indeed, the comparison is silly, but for a different reason : Asian
> food, European food... this doesn't mean anything at all! What's in
> common between Japanese, Chinese and Cambodian foods, or between
> German, English, Spanish and Italian foods? Nothing.
Well, they're all carbon based, genereally.
The funniest part of the perl/Python flame war is how similar
languages are, especially when compared with stuff like lisp, ml or
haskell.
oh-my-god-I'm-about-to-post-to-a-perl-vs.-Python-thread-ly y'rs
Michael
John Machin
> I once described perl as being like awk on
> steroids and lsd
Actually perl is more like SNOBOL4 on sedatives.
There is nothing new under the sun. SNOBOL4, which was up to version 3
by 1969, had goodies like arrays (like Python lists, but with multiple
dimensions that were fixed when the array was created), tables (like
Python dictionaries), user-defined functions, user-defined data-types
(about the same functionality as C's struct), built-in pattern
matching, operator over-riding, extensibility through "external
functions" written in FORTRAN or assembly language, automatic garbage
collection, ...
It even had the ability to assign the result of a partial pattern match
to a variable ... about 30 years later, Python got this in the re
module's ?P<name> feature, and AFAIK perl doesn't have this even yet.
However SNOBOL4 also had the ugliest syntax that I've ever seen in a
language that was genuinely intended for serious work -- Intercal is
far uglier but is a parody.
For example [1]
FLIP = LEN(*I) . HEAD LEN(1) $ X LEN(1) $ Y *LGT(X,Y)
...
I = LT(I,LIMIT) I + 1 :S(LOOP)
That last line has this effect, expressed in C:
if (i < limit) { i++; goto loop; }
Another "feature" was indirection.
FOO = 'BAR'
$FOO = 'ZOT'
gives the same result as
BAR = ZOT
"The statement
$INPUT = X
is an extreme example in which a string is read in and used as a
variable" [2]
awk, which started out in 1977, has no arrays, no structs, and didn't
get user-defined functions till 1985 [4]. Interestingly, both SNOBOL4
and awk came from the one source: Bell Labs.
By the way, SNOBOL4's arrays had the same (documented) trap-for-young-
players as Python's:
"Each element of an array is given the same initial value.
Consequently, execution of the instructions
A1 = ARRAY(5)
A2 = ARRAY(5, A1)
creates only two arrays. Each element of A2 has the same array, A1, as
value" . [3]
In Python, using a size of 3 instead of 5 so's it'll fit on a line:
>>> a1 = [''] * 3
>>> a2 = [a1] * 3
>>> a1, a2
(['', '', ''], [['', '', ''], ['', '', ''], ['', '', '']])
>>> a2[0][0] = 'x'
>>> a1, a2
(['x', '', ''], [['x', '', ''], ['x', '', ''], ['x', '', '']])
>>> a1[2] = 'z'
>>> a1, a2
(['x', '', 'z'], [['x', '', 'z'], ['x', '', 'z'], ['x', '', 'z']])
======================
References:
[1] Griswold, R.E., Poage, J.F., and Polonsky, I.P., "The SNOBOL4
Programming Language", 2nd ed., Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs NJ,
1971. -- page 80.
[2] ibid, p. 192
[3] ibid, p. 114
[4] GNU gawk distribution, gawk.info, section entitled "History of
`awk' and `gawk'"
======================
Did-anyone-we-know-write-a-SNOBOL4-mode-for-the-IBM-026-keypunch?-ly
yours,
John
Robin Becker
Machin <sjma...@lexicon.net> writes
>On 14 Aug 99, at 19:12, Robin Becker wrote:
>
>> I once described perl as being like awk on
>> steroids and lsd
>
>Actually perl is more like SNOBOL4 on sedatives.
>
>There is nothing new under the sun. SNOBOL4, which was up to version 3
>by 1969, had goodies like arrays (like Python lists, but with multiple
>dimensions that were fixed when the array was created), tables (like
>Python dictionaries), user-defined functions, user-defined data-types
--
Robin Becker
Phil Hunt
mw...@cam.ac.uk "Michael Hudson" writes:
> Jerome Kalifa <Jerome...@polytechnique.fr> writes:
> [schnupp]
> > Indeed, the comparison is silly, but for a different reason : Asian
> > food, European food... this doesn't mean anything at all! What's in
> > common between Japanese, Chinese and Cambodian foods, or between
> > German, English, Spanish and Italian foods? Nothing.
>
> Well, they're all carbon based, genereally.
>
> The funniest part of the perl/Python flame war is how similar
> languages are, especially when compared with stuff like lisp, ml or
> haskell.
Yep, Perl and python are semantically quite close (IMO). The difference
is Python has sensible syntax.
--
Phil Hunt....philh@vision25.demon.co.uk
Tim Peters
> I once described perl as being like awk on steroids and lsd
[John Machin]
> Actually perl is more like SNOBOL4 on sedatives.
While I'm tickled by the image, nothing is like SNOBOL4 -- not even its
modern successor, Icon. SNOBOL4 was unique, and is still the Best Language
on Earth for writing string pattern-matching algorithms.
> [a nostalgic look at S4's pioneering features]
> ...
> It even had the ability to assign the result of a partial pattern
> match to a variable ... about 30 years later, Python got this in
> the re module's ?P<name> feature, and AFAIK perl doesn't have this
> even yet.
Neither does Python <wink>: S4's "immediate assignments" allowed capturing
partial results even if the overall match failed. Perl may yet get the
effect of that by allowing embedded Perl code in regexps, but Python likely
won't.
> However SNOBOL4 also had the ugliest syntax that I've ever seen in a
> language that was genuinely intended for serious work -- Intercal is
> far uglier but is a parody.
Its syntax was fine! I expect that what you really object to is the absence
of control structures other than goto, and the LT/GE/etc spelling of
comparison operators. That was common enough in its day, and even by the
time Pascal came around the keypunch I used still didn't have a semicolon
key. It looks ugly in retrospect only because it is <wink>.
> For example [1]
> FLIP = LEN(*I) . HEAD LEN(1) $ X LEN(1) $ Y *LGT(X,Y)
All obvious to the most casual observer <snort>. It's interesting that you
*still* can't spell this algorithm fragment with comparable ease in Python
or Perl! Roughly, FLIP is a pattern fragment that skips the first I
characters of a string (or fails if the string is shorter than I chars),
assigns the next two characters to variables X and Y (or fails if there
aren't two more), and then succeeds if X is lexically greater than Y else
fails. And the first I characters are assigned to HEAD iff the pattern as a
whole succeeds. In context, the next line is
STR FLIP = HEAD Y X
which matches FLIP against string STR, and interchanges X with Y if they're
lexically out of order (replacing the HEAD characters with themselves
unchanged). In Python you'd be provoked to
def flip(str, i):
try:
if str[i] > str[i+1]:
str = str[:i] + str[i+1] + str[i] + str[i+2:]
except IndexError:
pass
return str
To modern eyes I'm sure that looks clearer, but six delicate indexing
expressions are a half dozen chances to blow it that the S4 fragment can't
suffer. I will admit that the call-by-reference Perl
sub flip {
my ($s, $i) = @_;
substr($$s, $i, 2) = $2 . $1 if $$s =~ /^.{$i}(.)(.)/ && $1 gt $2;
}
is much closer to the S4 <wink>.
> ...
> Did-anyone-we-know-write-a-SNOBOL4-mode-for-the-IBM-026-keypunch?-ly
> yours,
yes-but-it-was-in-fortran2-and-kept-blowing-the-tubes-ly y'rs - tim
Alex Maranda
> While I'm tickled by the image, nothing is like SNOBOL4 -- not even its
> modern successor, Icon. SNOBOL4 was unique, and is still the Best Language
> on Earth for writing string pattern-matching algorithms.
> > Did-anyone-we-know-write-a-SNOBOL4-mode-for-the-IBM-026-keypunch?-ly
> > yours,
>
> yes-but-it-was-in-fortran2-and-kept-blowing-the-tubes-ly y'rs - tim
the mere humans will get a chance at reading your source code.
some-bots-are-better-than-others-ly y'rs - Alex
Ian Clarke
> Yep, Perl and python are semantically quite close (IMO). The difference
> is Python has sensible syntax.
....and so it begins again....
Ian.
Martijn Faassen
[who was this?]
>> The problem in comp.lang.perl.misc is not the beginners -- it is
>> the regulars.
[snip Ian's response]
Come on guys, this is not useful, not nice, and not true. Yes, of course
people snap, and sometimes they make the mistake of not being diplomatic,
but *everybody* makes this mistake, definitely including Ian Clarke with
this very stupid title he chose. :)
Regards,
Martijn
Howard S.Modell
>
> In message <19990816205639...@max41127.izone.net.au>, John
> Machin <sjma...@lexicon.net> writes
> >On 14 Aug 99, at 19:12, Robin Becker wrote:
> >
> >> steroids and lsd
> >
> >
> >There is nothing new under the sun. SNOBOL4, which was up to version 3
> >by 1969, had goodies like arrays (like Python lists, but with multiple
> >dimensions that were fixed when the array was created), tables (like
> >Python dictionaries), user-defined functions, user-defined data-types
> ...
> --
> Robin Becker
it went even further than that. It allowed for overloading of any and all
pre-defined symbols and had a CODE function that would let you feed in "code"
that could either augment or replace the underlying runtime engine.
Basically, you could start out in SNOBOL4 and end up with something completely
different.
--
Perl? Python? If we all programmed in SNOBOL4 the way g-d intended,
we wouldn't have to worry about debates like that!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Howard S. Modell ª¿ª howard.s.modell-at-boeing.com
Phil Budne
Tim Peters <tim...@email.msn.com> wrote;
> While I'm tickled by the image, nothing is like SNOBOL4 -- not even its
> modern successor, Icon. SNOBOL4 was unique, and is still the Best Language
> on Earth for writing string pattern-matching algorithms.
There are those of us who still use and develop SNOBOL4.
I've done a free port of the original Macro SNOBOL4, souped up with
some features of SPITBOL. It will run pretty much on anything with
pointers that are at least 32 bits long, and has a C compiler; Macro
SPITBOL is available for a wide variety of platforms from Catspaw Inc,
who also runs a SNOBOL4 mailing list.
For further information see;
http://snobol4.com
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/philbudne/snobol.html
For those who like SNOBOL4 but need a dose of syntactic sugar should
try Andrew Koenig's SNOCONE.
-phil
Ian Clarke
> >> The problem in comp.lang.perl.misc is not the beginners -- it is
> >> the regulars.
> Come on guys, this is not useful, not nice, and not true. Yes, of course
> people snap, and sometimes they make the mistake of not being diplomatic,
> but *everybody* makes this mistake, definitely including Ian Clarke with
> this very stupid title he chose. :)
Hey! I was quite proud of that title ;-)
As for the C.L.P.M regulars, I agree with the statement you quote, and
damn the consequences. Never mind not being diplomatic, those guys are
*consistently* arrogant, and rude. One of their favourite tricks is to
start an argument with you and then inform you that you have been
killfiled (I have seen it happen many many times, to many many people).
If you don't believe me have a hunt in deja-news for a few of their
utterances. Tom Christiansen is a particularly good example, and the
situation is made worse by the way the other regulars suck up to his
every action (see "HARASSMENT -- Monthly Autoemail" thread in CLPM for a
graphic demonstration of this).
Ian.
Martijn Faassen
[snip[
> Perl? Python? If we all programmed in SNOBOL4 the way g-d intended,
> we wouldn't have to worry about debates like that!
Funny, I read that 'the way g-d indented'. :)
Regards,
Martijn
Martijn Faassen
> Martijn Faassen wrote:
>>
>> Funny, I read that 'the way g-d indented'. :)
> Hey, what a great signature that would make!
> Python: Programming the way g-d indented.
*laughs*
Go and use it!
Regards,
Martijn
Howard S.Modell
>
> Howard S.Modell <howard....@boeing.com> wrote:
> [snip[
> > Perl? Python? If we all programmed in SNOBOL4 the way g-d intended,
> > we wouldn't have to worry about debates like that!
>
>
>
> Martijn
I would assume that when g-d writes python code, it just naturally
falls into divine alignment, no spaces or tabs necessary ...
--
Perl? Python? If we all programmed in SNOBOL4 the way g-d intended,
we wouldn't have to worry about debates like that!
Greg Ewing
>
> Funny, I read that 'the way g-d indented'. :)
Hey, what a great signature that would make!
Python: Programming the way g-d indented.
Greg
Moshe Zadka
Make that:
Python: Programming the way g--d- indented.
Chad Netzer
> Make that:
> Python: Programming the way g--d- indented.
Ha ha! Now that's clever!
Chad
Robert Kern
<mos...@server.python.net> wrote:
>On Fri, 20 Aug 1999, Greg Ewing wrote:
>
>> Martijn Faassen wrote:
>> >
>> > Funny, I read that 'the way g-d indented'. :)
>>
>> Hey, what a great signature that would make!
>>
>> Python: Programming the way g-d indented.
>
>Make that:
>Python: Programming the way g--d- indented.
Why does this remind me of Douglas Hofstadter's _Gödel, Escher, Bach_?
:-)
Robert Kern |
----------------------|"In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
This space | Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
intentionally | - Richard Harter
left blank. |
Cliff, or a close facsimile
| >> > Funny, I read that 'the way g-d indented'. :)
| >>
| >> Hey, what a great signature that would make!
| >>
| >> Python: Programming the way g-d indented.
| >
| >Make that:
| >Python: Programming the way g--d- indented.
|
| Why does this remind me of Douglas Hofstadter's _Gödel, Escher, Bach_?
| :-)
Programming the way g-d-- intended? Now that's just scary..
--
cliff crawford http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/cjc26/
There are more stars in the sky than there are
-><- grains of sand on all the beaches of the world.
Xah
----------
In article <37b6...@cs.colorado.edu>, Tom Christiansen
<tch...@mox.perl.com> wrote:
> [courtesy cc of this posting mailed to cited author]
>
> In comp.lang.perl.misc, the...@my-deja.com writes:
> ...
> I think I can safely say, that the Perl
> :community is quite arrogant, especially to people new to it.
>
> It certainly didn't start out that way, and for many years Perl was
> famous for being precisely exactly the opposite of hostile. It was
> about a programming community of mutual benefit.
>
> Think back to the 80s and early 90s. The change, if it really happened,
> came with the upty-gazillion CGI script kiddies who couldn't program
> 2+2, yet who wanted *us* to write *them* these persistent, encrypted,
> crossplatform, multiscreen shopping carts for e-commerce, complete with
> dynamically-generated animated vanity counters, each and every time
> they stepped up to the feeder.
isn't that what perl republic wanted? If we want popularity, we cannot look
down on script kiddies. They are the ones who made Perl ubiquitous. Besides,
with Perl's DWIM (pronounced dim-wit) feature, much of what these kiddies
want are half done already.
> As a result, There's not much left of a spirit of a programming community
> of mutual benefit when it becomes numerically dominated by people who
> don't want to study or to work or EVEN TO PROGRAM, and who all seem to
> think you owe them something.
yeah I can grok that. Before I became a Perl expert, I was one of those
tedious perfectionist. Since then my brain has been freed. The Perl way(s)
has taught me the virtues of good programer. These days I can just fart and
food comes to my mouth, and I think everyone owes me something.
> When > 90% of the newsgroup postings are ill-formatted garbledy-gook
> that also fall into the category of not having bothered to have first
> checked the online docs or faqs that come with Perl, these things add up.
> And eventually, it risks breaking our spirit. There's just no way to deal
> with the never-ending onslaught of non-programmer CGI script kiddies, who
> seem to outnumber the rest of us zillions to one.
Although I've been brain-washed for good, but one of my old trait --
documentation readings -- remained. I read all fags and your 4-camel books.
However, I no longer read them fastidiously. Perl has taught me to grok
docs, suck cheesiness, wallow in ambiguity, and swallow imprecision. Life
has never been as fun. Now I always think in contexts. As you can see, even
my writings are very context sensitive now.
> So what do you do? You either bail out of this untenable situation, as
> Larry Wall has done, or else "customer-service battle fatigue" sets in.
> When that happens, people end up getting snapped at, sometimes mistaking
> an honest learner for yet another beggar looking for handouts.
Oh wait a min Tommy my leader. We are proud of calling ourselves mongers.
should the term 'beggar' not be used in a scary context? y'know, that might
muddy our reputation.
> I dare
> say this would happen even in the best of families, given equivalent
> circumstances.
I concur to dare say that too. The big ass functional language family(ies)
never faltered on issues of quality, yet their collective newsgroup activity
is pitifully small. It's like a diamond lost in space.
> I do think that earnest individuals seriously wanting
> to work hard are still given the same helping hand they always got.
Yes. With you leading the way, we always benefits. It's like a prodding
cattle; there are always more than one way to get people going.
> Be careful what you wish for.
>
> --tom
Didn't _Larry_ said that sometimes in his life? Sorry I'm off topic here.
> --
> Emacs is a fine operating system, but I still prefer Unix. -me
Me 2. Don't you sometimes wish that you could just wipe the entire planet's
emac'ers off your face? Gnu is Not Unix my Ass, because it is.
Lastly, it is my wish that one day I'll soar into a Perl demigod status like
you. For one thing, you taught me how to advocate perl pretty well, have I?
with Perl virtues,
Xah
x...@best.com
http://www.best.com/~xah/PageTwo_dir/more.html
"The three principle virtues of Perl programers: mundaneness, sloppiness,
and fatuousness."
Xah
----------
>From: Tom Christiansen <tch...@mox.perl.com>
>Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.misc,comp.lang.python
>Subject: Re: Why use Python when we've got Perl?
>Date: 1999, Aug 14, , 7:31 AM
>
> Certainly Perl's hooks into Unix are stronger than are its hooks for
> proprietary systems from Microsoft, Apple, or the erstwhile DEC, which
> even if existent, tend to manifest themselves as add-on modules rather
> than as original core functionality. This of course makes perfect
> historical sense, given the natal environment and concomitant problem
> domain.
>
> Nevertheless, "Perl: The Programmer's Companion" by Nigel Chapman
> (whose ambiguously worded title actually posits Perl as a companion
> of programmers) does a commendable job of providing a solid technical
> foundation for the language with nary a whit of system-specific arcana.
> This small and inexpensive volume (in which I aver no personal interest)
> stands head and shoulders above all others as the best introductory Perl
> book, especially for real programmers such as yourself. Script kiddies,
> tape operators, and all such ilk occasionally merit other recommendations,
> some of which occasionally include rather than a book title something
> on the order of, "Hey kid, hurry up with those french fries!" :-)
>
> --tom
You realize that book does the Perl community a de-service? It doesn't talk
about unix, the author uses MacPerl, it's written with clarity, real humor,
and exceptionally well organized. The worst is that it's written by an
computer scientist. <shudder>
No, I rather prefer YOUR opuses. Besides, yours are so popular and
voluminous that I can take it with me when I visit john and use it to wipe
my ass with spare.
I'm thinking of writing a comprehensive, free, quality Perl on-line manual
for the GNU project. Would you help out? Y'know, without your interjection,
I'll probably end up writing something like that Chapman fellow's.
Xah
x...@best.com
http://www.best.com/~xah/PageTwo_dir/more.html
"Perl my ass -- there are more than one way to express love too."
--Larry Wall, from antimatter universe.
Xah
>...
>
> The problem in comp.lang.perl.misc is not the beginners -- it is
> the regulars.
We, as Perl programers, enjoy what we do. Flaming is part of the culture,
not to mention a good training ground for stupid newbies. Rather a nice
multi-purpose filtering system. If you have thick skin and you endured, then
you have what to takes to be a Perl preacher like us. Otherwise, we're more
than happy to kick you back to your dustless hospital room or research labs.
Perl wouldn't be a nice community without bad asses like Tom Christensan,
Chris Nador and some other regulars I don't want to mention now. We thrive
on smiting newbies. We live to smite each other too. If you start to feel
uncomfy, get out.
un'stand?
PS I love Tommy's automatic email manifesto on newsgroup line formats. I got
few of them in the past, and I lived to tell the tale. One day I'll write a
bot that bounce one for one of every his spams. Here in comp.lang.perl.misc,
we learn by doing.
Xah
x...@best.com
http://www.best.com/~xah/PageTwo_dir/more.html
"I -- like many unix weenies -- love stupid nonsensical quotes."
--autononymous
Xah
----------
In article <37B7E1AC...@strs.co.uk>, Ian Clarke <I.Cl...@strs.co.uk>
wrote:
>> The problem in comp.lang.perl.misc is not the beginners -- it is
>> the regulars.
>
> I agree completely. As the person who started this whole thing
> (sheepish grin) the regulars, Tom in particular, has been rude, and
> resorted to personal insults on a number of occasions, even while I
> remained calm and polite. He repeatedly accuses me of being a troll and
> inciting flames (despite the fact that he was the only one flaming!).
> To top it all off, having posted numerous "courtesy" copies of his
> newsgroup postings to my email address, to which I replied on-subject
> and politely, he then emailed me an email saying that I had been
> killfiled! A rather pathetic way to get the last word in my opinion.
What the fuck do you know? (yes, I used that language often just like Tom
said he does. Check deja news for yourself.) If you didn't public proclaim
that somebody is "trolling" or that you "killfiled" somebody or that you
send somebody to "/dev/null", then you don't deserve to be in
comp.lang.perl.misc.
Lessen one for ya: As soon as you don't agree with someone and it heats up,
you must cry troll or one of the other alternative above. Any thing along
the lines of "auto-deletion" won't do, because it's too not cool. And, you
MUST proclaim it publicly so that you can prove to other perl mongers that
you have the true monger spirit. I guess the other functionality of this
ritual is some kinda warning system. As you know, not all perl programers
are bright like sunshine. The semi-newbies jerk into bad defense. It's
always a show-stopper.
> Lucky I do not judge Perl on the quality of their newsgroup regulars.
Unlucky for you that you didn't. Now go back to your python group and enjoy
your polite studies.
> Ian.
Xah
x...@best.com
http://www.best.com/~xah/PageTwo_dir/more.html
"The three principle virtues of Perl programers: mundaneness, sloppiness,
and fatuousness." -- Larry Somebody
Shannon Watters
Xah <x...@best.com> wrote in message news:37bfe42c$0$2...@nntp1.ba.best.com...
>
> Perl wouldn't be a nice community without bad asses like Tom Christensan,
> Chris Nador and some other regulars I don't want to mention now. We thrive
> on smiting newbies. We live to smite each other too. If you start to feel
> uncomfy, get out.
>
> un'stand?
>
It's easy to act like a tough guy over the net, isn't it?
Cameron Laird
.
.
>Think back to the 80s and early 90s. The change, if it really happened,
>came with the upty-gazillion CGI script kiddies who couldn't program
>2+2, yet who wanted *us* to write *them* these persistent, encrypted,
>crossplatform, multiscreen shopping carts for e-commerce, complete with
>dynamically-generated animated vanity counters, each and every time
>they stepped up to the feeder.
.
.
And e-mail address validation; don't forget that.
No, wait, I mean, the *eight* things no one ever
expects from the Spanish Inquisition are ...
--
Cameron Laird http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
cla...@NeoSoft.com +1 281 996 8546 FAX
Jon Peterson
> Xah <x...@best.com> wrote in message news:37bfe42c$0$2...@nntp1.ba.best.com...
> >
> > Perl wouldn't be a nice community without bad asses like Tom Christensan,
> > Chris Nador and some other regulars I don't want to mention now. We thrive
> It's easy to act like a tough guy over the net, isn't it?
Hell yeah - I mean, err, why else does anyone read c.l.p.m ?
Remind me to start a bot that autoemails people the contents of:
http://www.5sigma.com/perl/topten.html
preferably still in HTML format. Now that I think of it the worst part of the
new www.perl.com site is that it includes a pointer to c.l.p.m. without an
attached health warning. And, amusingly, a search for 'perl community' turns
up precisely no documents. Well well well.
[runs off to his friendly London Perl Mongers group for sanity and useful help]
Abigail
MCMXCIII in <URL:news:37C552DF...@megsinet.net>:
$$
$$ That being said, are there ways to integrate Python and Perl to do things
$$ that neither one can do alone?!
Since Python and Perl are Turing equivalent, what things are you refering to?
Abigail
--
perl -wle 'print "Prime" if (0 x shift) !~ m 0^\0?$|^(\0\0+?)\1+$0'
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Gary O'Keefe
>I don't quite understand the relevance of this entire Perl advocacy string
>here. If Xah thinks that getting mean responses to postings (especially
>postings from newbies) is so very cool, then why waste time over here doing
>postings to the Python newsgroup. I must say that in most newsgroups I have
>found people friendly and helpful. If I were to post to a newsgroup and get
>flamed for not knowing anything or given obviously incorrect information just
>to piss me off, I'd never go back. It would not generate feelings of
>advocacy for me. Who the hell wants to have some intellectual elitist
>assholes tell you you're ignorant just for asking a question?!
Python is a language that you hear about after conversing with
knowledgeable people, a language recommended by experts to the keen
computer scientist -- I've always thought of Python, perhaps unfairly,
as being the language for those people interested in language design
as an end in itself. But, one way or another, this makes for edifying
conversation between educated people.
Perl on the other hand is the first language anyone even vaguely
interested in putting together an interactive web-server hears about.
That means EVERY DUMBASS IN THE UNIVERSE who wants to put their cock
on the internet and have you virtually stroke it but, importantly,
can't be bothered to actually learn all this computer bullshit posts
to comp.lang.perl.misc.
If your newsgroup (that you'd just paid to download) was filled with
posts like this:
> Subject: [newbee] I am too damn lazy - can't you do this for me?
>
> hay gurus
>
> Im starting up an intractive cock-stroking website
> (http://www.cockstroke.com/). Its going 2 B KEWL!!!
>
> But I NEED A CGI TO MAKE IT WORK!!!
>
> Can you supr-clever gurus write me something??!! It woudnt take
> you any time and ITD B GRATE!!!
>
> THX
>
> Newbee
then your patience would vapourise, just like ours.
Gary
The newbee post above and any mentioned websites are purely fictional.
Any similarity to a real newbee, (living or dead) or website are
purely co-incidental.
<NOT SERIOUS>
p.s. I've got a great idea: let's teach those smug python bastards a
lesson by re-directing all the newbees to comp.lang.python. Tell them
it's the latest, greatest, thing for developing their CGI scripts.
Tell them its was designed to be easy to write and maintain and it's
built-from-the-ground-up object model is the toast of the town in the
deevelopment community. Tell them all that perl stuff is old-fashioned
and we're only here on cplm out of a sense of nostalgia and as a
favour to the usenet community, redirecting the ignorant newbees to
the python promised land. Tell them that clp is much friendlier and
they DON'T HAVE FAQS, so the newbees'll never get told to RTFF or
FOAD.
We'll see how fast their bottle fills, then.
<\NOT SERIOUS>
--
Gary O'Keefe
ga...@onegoodidea.com
You know the score - my current employer has nothing to do with what I post
Phil Hunt
Hey, I thought all Perl users were like that :-)
> Gary
>
> The newbee post above and any mentioned websites are purely fictional.
> Any similarity to a real newbee, (living or dead) or website are
> purely co-incidental.
>
> <NOT SERIOUS>
> p.s. I've got a great idea: let's teach those smug python bastards a
> lesson by re-directing all the newbees to comp.lang.python. Tell them
> it's the latest, greatest, thing for developing their CGI scripts.
I can see it now: Python, the language for a firmer, harder, hotter,
cock-stroking experience!!!
--
Phil Hunt....philh@vision25.demon.co.uk
William Tanksley
>That being said, are there ways to integrate Python and Perl to do things
>that neither one can do alone?!
Minotaur is an attempt to do exactly that -- they've got Python, Perl,
Tcl, Ruby, Forth, and several other languages all glued together and all
callable from each other, with good data interchange.
If anything can result in a synergistic effect, that's it.
>David O.
--
-William "Billy" Tanksley
Friedrich Dominicus
>
> On Thu, 26 Aug 1999 10:44:48 -0400, David Oppenheimer wrote:
>
> >That being said, are there ways to integrate Python and Perl to do things
> >that neither one can do alone?!
>
> Minotaur is an attempt to do exactly that -- they've got Python, Perl,
> Tcl, Ruby, Forth, and several other languages all glued together and all
> callable from each other, with good data interchange.
Would be helpful to know how they are doing and where
Regards
Friedrich
William Tanksley
>Where can I find info on Minotaur?
I don't remember, but try looking it up on http://freshmeat.net/.
Gordon McMillan
>
http://mini.net/pub/ts2/minotaur.html
It's really proof of concept, (don't expect too much). There also
hasn't been much activity there in a month or so. I don't think it's
dead, but I think it will be awhile before the main actors get back
to it.
- Gordon
Cameron Laird
In article <127632366...@hypernet.com>,
For more pointers to Minotaur, XML-RPC, and so on, see <URL:http://
www.sunworld.com/sunworldonline/swol-07-1999/swol-07-regex.html#2>.
Gordon's entirely right: Minotaur in particular is far from dead,
but, as is generally true, all the good workers have plenty else to
do.
Xah Lee
David O. wrote:
>
> Where can I find info on Minotaur?
>
>David O.
Dear David O'moron,
You can find Minotaur info at this url:
http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/articles/m/minotaur.html
Xah
x...@best.com
http://www.best.com/~xah/PageTwo_dir/more.html