I think, that Python and Ruby are good languages, but the first thing that I want to point out is that, if the language is more popular, doesn't mean, that it's better.

For example, php, Visual Basic and Delphi are the most popular languages, because they are easy to learn and use. PHP, however is mostly, if not only, suitable for web projects. You can use it for standalone programs, but, it's difficult. Visual Basic and Delphi are the languages made for nonprogrammers or beginners. They are inflexible. It's easy to do simple programs, using them, but, when your projects grow, they crumble under their weight and there is a lot of bad quality code. For example, to do a simple procedure of justifying a text in a Visual Basic, took me almost 3 pages of code, while in perl, I did it in about 15 lines of code (about a half of the screen), that was more readable than in Visual Basic. The code from Visual Basic, Delphi and, to some extent, from php is very difficult to almost impossible to reuse on other projects.

In comparison to other languages, Perl has an best regular expression power. Also, it has a difficult to learn, but the best unicode support. With Perl, you can easily build very complex data structures (nested arrays, code references, associate arrays (hashes), within arrays, within hashes etc.)

Python, is object based from the ground up, while Perl has a support for object oriented programs. I like the mandatory documentation that you have to do in Python code. You can embed documentation in Perl programs, but it's not mandatory. I want to learn Python mostly, because it has a support in Paint Shop Pro, GIMP and Blender, gedit, gnome, etc., so I can automate things in those environments. There is a disadvantage, though, that there is no compatibility from Python 2 branch to Python 3 branch. Python 3, is pretty much a new language in comparison to Python 2. The abundance of Python 2 programs will not run under Perl 3.

In reply to Re: Honest question about Perl, Python and Ruby by igoryonya
in thread Honest question about Perl, Python and Ruby by madM

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.