" Perl has this awesome site to help you out with years of lively discussion about all manner of Perl topics."

...and even some non-Perl topics from time-to-time, but we don't allow bashing of other languages, except for me, because I code in Python as part of my job (and have for ~1.5 years), so I'm allowed. Perl is better :)

Perl resembles C quite a bit, with it's braces and semi-colon line endings, so it's quite familiar to those who code in many other languages. Python, on the other hand, forces you to learn a whole different way to write code, and absolutely forces you to obey it's idea of what a good layout is.

I have been meaning to look at Python for some time now, but I've had plenty of other things to do. I find Python's enforced formatting a little irritating, but I should just put that aside and try the language out -- it's just a long way down my list of cool things to try out.

I finally did some PHP for $work[-2] about eighteen months ago -- it was an authentication plugin for Roundcube -- and it was fine. I spent some time during that project looking stuff up in the PHP documentation, but apart from that, it was web development as usual -- no biggie.

Alex / talexb / Toronto

Thanks PJ. We owe you so much. Groklaw -- RIP -- 2003 to 2013.

To be honest, it's a very easy language to grasp, especially if you have any Object Oriented experience whatsoever, as the whole premise of Python is that everything is an object.

If anything, I'd say Python is closer to Perl6 than it is to Perl5, due to the OO approach alone.

I'd go as far as saying that Python is probably the easiest language I've learned so far overall. It is a fun language to write in.

Install PyCharm, and you'll be on your way. Note that PyCharm, with the Camelcade Perl 5 plugin, you'll have a full blown IDE that works with both Python and Perl seamlessly (this is what I do, but I use intelliJ at home as opposed to PyCharm at work).

I was working at one job in Perl for ~7 years. Now I am mainly using Python (2.7! BOOOooo!). Besides initial irritation of enforced indentation (and other ongoing minor annoyances), it seems to be just as easy to pick up, and programming as Perl.

I've also coded in Python and dislike its required indentation. Have to make sure your editor/IDE is set up to not mix spaces and tabs, otherwise you can easily end up with code that looks right, but the Python compiler "sees" it differently.

Though, I started coding in BASIC, then C, so working with a language where indentation is part of the syntax was and still is alien to me.

(Yes, indentation makes code easier to read, but I don't rely on it. Sometimes, I will use a "pretty printer" tool to reformat C code to help me read it. That has actually helped me find some bugs. With Perl, you can use <c>perl -MO=Deparse -c</o> to see how Perl's compiler "sees" your code.)

You mention using PHP. PHP's syntax is closer to Perl's than it is to Python's. That can be both good and bad when moving from PHP to Perl. While Perl will feel less alien, it's somewhat easy to try doing something the "PHP way" while coding Perl (and vice-versa).