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Perl is expressive but the code can be hard to read. In general, Python is readable because it enforces the indentation and other language design choices. Pyth

Perl is expressive but the code can be hard to read. In general, Python is readable because it enforces the indentation and other language design choices. Python also got heavyweight libraries such as Numpy and Pandas which put it in the front. Perl do not have have such well known libraries as far as I know.

hodgesrm 5y ago
Add great visualization (Seaborn) and ML (Scikit and numerous frameworks like Pytorch) and you have a pretty complete analytic package.
city41 5y ago
Perl seems to have died down just about everywhere. I've not used it professionally or seen it in use in well over a decade. It's so expressive and has so many ways to do things that reading other people's Perl can be challenging. I think this contributed to its downfall. And "other people" can often mean "yourself in six months" too.
- scop 5y ago
  > And "other people" can often mean "yourself in six months" too. Amen to this point. I am currently the single engineer in a small software biz and after the last engineer left I thought to myself "well, at least I won't have to decipher his code anymore"...needless to say, I've been shocked by how much time I can spend on a system only to revisit it within a year and have little to no memory of how or why I did something a certain way!
qsort 5y ago
> Python also got heavyweight libraries such as Numpy This. For the kind of tasks data science involves, you either write C++ or you need the equivalent of Numpy. No Numpy means no Pandas, which means no sane way to wrangle datasets. For all the hate it gets, Numpy is a world-class library.
8organicbits 5y ago
The last time I wrote production Perl code (2012) I stressed about keeping it readable, especially by anyone who would be learning Perl. The company was mostly C/C++ focused with maybe Python as a #3. I think Perl-isms can be foreign if you haven't seen them, so they should be avoided in any non-Perl focused company. Looking now (it's open source) there's two keywords I have forgotten. It's a Perl binding to a C library using an old version of Swig. There's lots of Perl or C helper code to smooth out the bumps. It also looks like it hasn't been updated (bummer).

hodgesrm 5y ago

Add great visualization (Seaborn) and ML (Scikit and numerous frameworks like Pytorch) and you have a pretty complete analytic package.

city41 5y ago

Perl seems to have died down just about everywhere. I've not used it professionally or seen it in use in well over a decade. It's so expressive and has so many ways to do things that reading other people's Perl can be challenging. I think this contributed to its downfall. And "other people" can often mean "yourself in six months" too.

scop 5y ago
> And "other people" can often mean "yourself in six months" too. Amen to this point. I am currently the single engineer in a small software biz and after the last engineer left I thought to myself "well, at least I won't have to decipher his code anymore"...needless to say, I've been shocked by how much time I can spend on a system only to revisit it within a year and have little to no memory of how or why I did something a certain way!

qsort 5y ago

> Python also got heavyweight libraries such as Numpy This. For the kind of tasks data science involves, you either write C++ or you need the equivalent of Numpy. No Numpy means no Pandas, which means no sane way to wrangle datasets. For all the hate it gets, Numpy is a world-class library.

8organicbits 5y ago

The last time I wrote production Perl code (2012) I stressed about keeping it readable, especially by anyone who would be learning Perl. The company was mostly C/C++ focused with maybe Python as a #3. I think Perl-isms can be foreign if you haven't seen them, so they should be avoided in any non-Perl focused company. Looking now (it's open source) there's two keywords I have forgotten. It's a Perl binding to a C library using an old version of Swig. There's lots of Perl or C helper code to smooth out the bumps. It also looks like it hasn't been updated (bummer).