Mike Meyer wrote: > John Bokma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> Mike Meyer wrote: >> >>> "Simon John" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>> >>>> I still love Perl, it's a bit of an art form, as "there's more than >>>> one way to do it", whereas Python usually only allows one way to do >>>> it, which may or may not be a better mantra.... >>> >>> The Python mantra leads to 1) less programmer overhead, and 2) faster >>> improvements in the language. >>> >>> To be a Perl expert, you have to know which of the many ways to do >>> various things is the fasted under what conditions. >> >> Why? > > One of the stated conditions for more than one Perl position I've > looked at.
That's weird, since some can differ between versions of Perl like for example a map in a void context. And I am sure Python has now and then improvements which make one operation suddenly 10% faster in a new version. So it tells you a lot about the people providing the position ;-) >>> Having only one obvious way >> I doubt that too ;-) > > Try programming in older Python for a while. You'll quit doubting it. Again I doubt that. I doubt that if I give 100 old Python programmers a certain computer science problem I will see 100 exactly the same solutions, which when benchmarked run equally fast. >>> to do things means developers only have to >>> worry about impact on that way when making improvements, which will >>> speed them up. >> Yeah, Perl programmers are extremely slow ;-) > > Nah, they aren't slow. They just have to worry about more things than > the Python developers. Do you have references to this? I would love to see if indeed 100 Python programmers do implement, say 5 CS tasks faster compared to 100 Perl programmers, on average. >> In most cases, why worry? If speed is an issue you should probably have >> picked a different programming language in the first place (for that >> part of the code). > > You apparently haven't been programming in Python very long. Nope. I think I copied 3 examples and had a peek at it. I did read the tutorial (twice) and am rereading Dive into Python. > If speed > is an issue, you should probably pick a different > algorithm. Well-written Python programs use the C-coded parts of > Python for the time-critical part of the code. Why are those time critical parts not written in Python ;-) >> Use the one that is the easiest to read and understand by yourself. >> That's how I program Perl, and that's how I am going to program Python. > > The thing is, in Python there usually is one obvious way to do > things. That's changed in recent years as improvements have been added > without dropping the features they replaced so as not to break old > programs. I know to little about Python, especially about old Python, to have an idea of what you mean. I only saw, quite recently, someones solution to a problem that used 30 lines of Python, and I am sure I could have written it in 3-4. And I doubt that's because he was using, or I was thinking in, new Python :-D. >> An overloaded toolbox doesn't mean that if you have to hang a painting >> on the wall that you have to think for 6 hours which tool you should >> use. You just take the one that does the job in a way you feel >> comfortable with. I know that the Perl mantra is often misunderstood, >> but in my experience only by people who have very little experience with >> the language. > > The problem with using "the way you feel comfortable with" is that it > may not be comfortable for the maintainer - even if that's you six > months from now. After 5 years one gets comfortable with most constructions in a language. I am more often uncomfortable with the way someone translates a problem into code. And there is no way how you can force people with a language that is, to do that the same, not even close. > My Perl evolved from very shell script like (lots of > backticks and passing around the full text of files) I am sure you can do that with Python too. > to one more > C-like as I used the language. That change was largely driven by > performance concerns as my understanding of the language grew. Yup, in Perl one should program Perl, not bash, not C. Same for Python. -- John MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/ personal page: http://johnbokma.com/ Experienced programmer available: http://castleamber.com/ Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
