> Isn't that rather an argument for Java or Perl? No, because then you'd have to stand either Java or Perl. If you are looking for a language to learn beyond

> Isn't that rather an argument for Java or Perl? No, because then you'd have to stand either Java or Perl. If you are looking for a language to learn beyond a quick hack, then the language matters more than its libraries. I know Perl, and everybody knows what a boon CPAN is, but still for scripting tasks I have switched to Python. It would have made me feel sick to keep programming in Perl. As I had to choose between Python and Ruby too, besides the library thing, I picked Python because Ruby seemed like it was trying too hard to be powerful and expressive, to the detriment of clarity. I didn't want to invest too much time in learning a scripting language. It's just for scripting, you know, it's not meant to accomplish much. If I need a powerful and expressive language, then I just reach for the big guns.