On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 01:00:29PM +0200, Arnold Krille wrote: > On Saturday 25 September 2010 10:49:35 Chris Cannam wrote: > > On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 8:06 AM, Joel Roth <joelz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > I guess I am reacting to what I imagine is language > > > preference projected onto absolute judgment on merits of a > > > particular language. > > > > > > Perhaps you are speaking from years of software development > > > experience. > > > > I have quite a lot of (mostly enjoyable) experience writing Perl over > > the years, including some fairly big programs, and hardly any > > experience with Python (a language I dislike on instinct). But my > > experience with Perl has been that returning to my own projects is > > harder than it should be, and harder than in languages like C and C++. > > That is probably due to my own limitations, particularly when it > > comes to discipline, but it's empirically true in my case. > > > > The real assumption I made back there was that Python code is any > > easier to return to -- I haven't the experience to judge, really, I'm > > just going on hearsay from friends and acquaintances. > > Python actually forces you to be more disciplined. Which really make returning > to the code easy. I believe that's the philosophy that there should be one right way to approach a particular task. Perl suffers (and benefits) from its motto TIMTOWTDI (pronounced tim-toady -- this is more than one way to do it.) > Using python for small apps/tools is easy. Using python for large projects is > easy. > Extending your C/C++-project with python is easy. > Using your own C/C++ parts in python is easy. That's a big advantage of python over perl right now: python's ctypes library. There is a project now to port ctypes to perl. Perl had previously borrowed Python's object mechanism. Just now it is finally being replaced, by Moose/Mouse in Perl 5, and the internal object system in Perl 6. I, for one, have had a great time with the python-derived perl object system. Otherwise, perl's vast CPAN libraries, cover many problem domains. > Porting parts of your python project to C/C++ is easy (think prototyping in > python and port to compiled-language once the interface is finished and the > optimizations begin). For optimizing perl, we have Devel::NYTProf, which profiles the time spent in each subroutine. (As the name suggests, the New York Times underwrote the development costs.) > I for one am very glad I learned python a few years back. Its fun. Good for you! So is perl. :-) I thought I would like to learn some other language, either python, ruby, Tcl or Forth, but usually I have some practical problem to get done, and the more familiar language gets used. > Disclaimer: I don't have any experience in perl, but what I get from the perl- > snapshots in German Linux-Magazin, it looks harder then python... Perl does have a few syntax quirks. The deferencing syntax is particularly awkward. There is also the oddity (and feature) of list/scalar context. For me, reading music is awkward, and so is reading python, but I don't blame the notation in either case. Best, Joel > Have fun, > > Arnold > _______________________________________________ > Linux-audio-user mailing list > Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user -- Joel Roth _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
