On Wed, 2006-08-02 at 08:14 -0400, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: > On Wed, Aug 02, 2006 at 08:37:13AM -0300, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Hello, > > > > I need to write several scripts for file manipulation, for example: > > change name files, read specific columns and write them in a new file, > > call fortan programs to read these files, etc. Because I have to learn > > how to do this, I wonder what scrip language is better: Perl or Phyton? > > or another one? (no flame war please!) > > > > Thanks in advance > > > > My view is that you can likely accomplish what you want with bash > scripting and some command line tools. However, if you want to learn > another language (which I think is always a good idea), then consider > Python. It is dead easy to learn (Google for "A Byte of Python") and is > very robust. For example, after learning even a little Python, you can > fairly easily read someone else's Python programs. Additionally, Python > makes it difficult to write bad code. That is, you must actively try to > write bad code (assuming you already have knowledge of sound software > development practices). On the other hand, while Perl is also very > powerful, it makes it hard to good code. That is, even if you have > knowledge of good software development practices, it is very easy to > write unreadable and unmaintainable code in Perl. With that said, Perl > is much more widely used currently than Python. There are many more > books available on Perl programming than Python programming and there > are many people out there with Perl experience than with Python > experience. > > Regards, > > -Roberto
I don't know Python, but I agree with Roberto about Perl. It is easy, even encouraged, to write unstructured code in Perl. On the other hand, it provides quick, compact solutions to common scripting problems. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
