> If you want lexical scoping […], you have to ask for it in Perl. That's false. Lexical scoping was added in 1994. One cannot ask for it, it's always "on". >

> If you want lexical scoping […], you have to ask for it in Perl. That's false. Lexical scoping was added in 1994. One cannot ask for it, it's always "on". > Python has safer defaults. The parable of the mote and the beam is very opportune here. The Python defaults do not amount to much. Python has neither strict variables (demo: https://stackoverflow.com/a/34071474 https://stackoverflow.com/a/34071474) nor lexical scope (demo below). That makes it quite unsafe to program, similar to shell: a simple typo silently causes wrong results instead of being shown as error. The safe features cannot be simply enabled, the usual work-around is to use a programming language that implements these features and compiles down to Python. ---- Demo of lack of lexical scope: $ python3.8 -c 'for i in range(1,4): print(i) print(i)' 1 2 3 3 The variable leaks out. Compare JS (run-time error): $ node15 -e '[1,2,3].forEach(i => console.log(i)); console.log(i)' 1 2 3 ReferenceError: i is not defined Compare Perl (compile-time error): $ perl -Mv5.32 -E 'for my $i (1..3) { say $i; } say $i;' Global symbol "$i" requires explicit package name (did you forget to declare "my $i"?) at -e line 1. Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.