[lfjokes] perl vs. python

[Adam Shand]

a geek religious war.  not quite as ancient as the vi vs. emacs or bsd
vs. linux wars but a significant one.  if you have no idea what i'm
talking about ... ignore me.

From: Lorrie Wood <lwood at snugharbor.com>

EXTERIOR: DAGOBAH--DAY 

With Yoda strapped to his back, Luke climbs up one of the many thick vines
that grow in the swamp until he reaches the Dagobah statistics lab.
Panting heavily, he continues his exercises--grepping, installing new
packages, logging in as root, and writing replacements for two-year-old
shell scripts in Python.

YODA: Code!  Yes.  A programmer's strength flows from code
      maintainability, but beware of Perl.  Terse syntax... more than one
      way to do it...  default variables.  The dark side of code
      maintainability are they.  Easily they flow, quick to join you when
      code you write.  If once you start down the dark path, forever will
      it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

LUKE: Is Perl better than Python? 

YODA: No... no... no.  Quicker, easier, more seductive.

LUKE: But how will I know why Python is better than Perl? 

YODA: You will know.  When your code you try to read six months from now.