Python or Perl
 

Which of the two programming languages will be in greater demand in the near future, for programming. Why?

You know that this is a religious issue, right?

I vote for Python and I'm ready to to defend it with religious ferocity. Bring it on! ;)

Anyway, the arguments you'll likely hear brought up in favor of Perl are:

• Perl has maintained backward compatibility, while Python just didn't care
• Perl's syntax, which doesn't enforce whitespacing and which is closer to shell script, is preferred by some

Whether you find those to be compelling is a matter of personal preference.

Perhaps it would be more productive if you could narrow down which industry you plan to go into (web development? film production? scientific computing? system administration?), and describe the programming projects you intend to work on? What's widely used in one field might be less widely used in another.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in <PROGRAMMING> and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Thanks Dugan
 

Thank you for the reply! I am interested in system administration, Dugan. I welcome any advice and pointers.

System administration is an area where Perl is still very much in use, and will be for the foreseeable future.

Personally running into less and less perl as time goes on. More Python, shell scripts, even PHP and Ruby in the sysadmin world.

I've been around a while and almost no amount of calculation can outsmart the future.

I might be tempted to say that python (while still goofy version to version) may get my vote.

Why choose? To be honest, once you've learned one of them, the other isn't that hard to pick up. In my field (bioinformatics), both languages are in use. There does tend to be an age split (older folks using perl, younger ones Python), but it makes zero difference in terms of productivity. I also have yet to run into a problem where one language succeeds but the other fails.

Yes, imo it is better to know both (and possibly ruby and more) when passing a job interview. Even if perl is older, you may find some maintenance perl scripts left by ancient admins at the work place

Also knowing php-cli can be useful. These script languages aren't that different, to tell the truth. (Let's note that python and python3 are different languages, though.)