perl or python

I was just wondering which is better or more powerful of the 2

I never tried perl, but I love python.

What U think

phaza7,

Take a look at http://www.perl.com/pub/a/language/versus/python.html it is at the Perl site but at least they name some of the features of both languages.

Hope it helps you. :D

along the same lines, i've been thinking about learnng perl for some time.
Does anyone recomend a good book or web site on the subject?

-aX

For Perl, Programming Perl is the best book on the subject. It's written by the language's author. Ya can't go wrong with that.

As for the subject of "which is better", it really depends on what you're doing. Perl has it's niche as a scripting language and CGI platform, and on both of those fronts it does Wonderfully. Python is a bit more strict of a language, but it makes up for it in robust-ness. Larger applications would probably be done easier in Python than in Perl.

Perl was built on the backs of text editors, and so it's a whiz at manipulating text. It also has been around longer than Python, and the support for it is vast. You could probably find modules for Perl that do just about anything these days. Larger applications, however, tend to look extremely messy and convoluted.

Python was built from the ground up to be a general purpose scripting language, and it's proven itself to be quite versitile. Even video games like Project Entropia are using it as an AI scripting language. That's pretty impressive.

So check what you are trying to do with your language and see what happens. For regular shell scripting and the occasional CGI, Perl makes for some quick development. If you're going to be writing some more extensive applications, go with Python.

Python compared to all languages :
http://www.python.org/doc/Comparisons.html

Lots of comparisons :
http://www.perl.com/language/versus/