Wandering Thoughts: Recent Entries For 2006/07/20

Why I like Python more than Perl

My attempts to write a general 'why I like Python' entry to answer a recent comment have floundered completely. However, part of the answer is in the reasons why I like Python more than Perl, and I came up with a summary of that back when I started programming in Python (and still had a copy of it, once I could find it).

The three problems I have with Perl that Python deals with are:

1. an unstructured namespace, which means that any time I want to do something I get to hunt through a listing of six zillion routines, most of them irrelevant.
2. limited data structures unless I get a chainsaw and do pointers (I get 'scalars' and 'containers of scalars' and after that have to resort to more or less explicit use of references).
3. a profusion of namespaces, with confusing operators and distinctions and passing them around and rules for doing things with them and and and.

(Disclaimer: tastes differ. I don't expect everyone to have my reactions to Perl, and there are certainly appealing aspects of Perl (including CPAN).)

Link: non-errors in English

Non-Errors is a nice catalog of things that aren't English usage errors, even though a lot of people tend to think that they are. Since I do any number of them I find this reassuring, and it's amusing to see just how old some of these perfectly proper usages turn out to be.

(From Daring Fireball.)