[oclug] Python, was: Evolution problem

[Jon Earle]

On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, Michael P. Soulier wrote:

>     Sometimes I wonder if dividing myself between multiple languages
> hurts my ability in all of them. What do you think? Is it better to keep
> your head buried in one language, or be eclectic and check out lots of
> them?

My experience.  Last Oct/Nov, I was given a project to develop the web
interface for a new application.  I could select pretty much anything for
my development platform - C, Perl, PHP, Python or whatever I chose.  I
knew a little PHP, virtually no perl, nothing about python (your Python
talk last fall for the OCUUG was quite interesting and made me consider
using it) and C, well, C was my old friend.  I'd been working on a web app
in C for the previous year (in Windows) and could use much of my knowlege
for the new project.

I ended up using perl for two, well three, reasons:

1. It was already in use on the system for some scripts. May as well stay
consistent.

2. After looking at some of the modules available (cgi.pm, etc) it was
clear that perl would speed my development time.

3. It gave me a chance to learn a new language for free.

It was slow getting into it, but in very short time, I was making
tremendous progress.  I'm no perl guru, but I've learned a heck of a lot
about perl and regular expressions with the help of many folks here,
yourself included.

So, not sure what the point, if any, is, in all that, but I was glad to
have the opportunity to learn something new and useful.

Cheers!
Jon

-- 
Jon Earle

SAVE FARSCAPE http://www.savefarscape.com/