Re: YAPAS (Yet Another Python Advocacy Story)

["David H. Adler" <dha@panix.com>]

On Sun, Mar 05, 2000 at 12:49:50AM -0500, Walt Mankowski wrote:
> Has anyone else had a chance to read the latest pro-Python, anti-Perl
> (and everything else) diatribe on the Oreilly web site, "Why I Promote
> Python" (http://www.oreilly.com/news/prescod_0300.html)?

It's linked from the "Software Carpentry" page, but I hadn't really
looked at it until now...

> Certainly there are valid arguments to be made on both sides, but the
> author seems so incredibly clueless that I think O'Reilly is doing the
> entire Python community a disservice by giving this guy such a
> high-profile soapbox.

Indeed.  Not only does he say 'Many other programs are written in a
variety of illegible dialects within the family of languages called
"Perl".', which is clearly incomprehensible (is that an oxymoron?
:-), but he also presents this comment: 'C++ and Perl only make sense
if you have a particular programming background.  If you did not come
from the "Unix tradition", many of their conventions and idioms seem
alien.'

I should make clear that, before coming to Perl, I had last programmed
in college, in the mid-eighties, in Pascal.  I could not, for the life
of me, tell you what kind of system we used.  I've been using macs
other than that since they first came out.  A "Unix" background I did
not have.  In fact, had I not discovered Perl, I might very well
*still* not have such a background.

I wonder if I should suggest he put that in his pipe and smoke it, or
if that would be giving it more attention than it deserves... :-/

dha

-- 
David H. Adler - <dha@panix.com> - http://www.panix.com/~dha/
Trust the computer industry to shorten the term "Year 2000" to Y2K.
It was this kind of thinking that got us in trouble in the first
place.		- Adrian Tyvand
**Majordomo list services provided by PANIX <URL:http://www.panix.com>**
**To Unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe phl" to majordomo@lists.pm.org**