> I think you mean that classes are first order, but I don't want to put words in your mouth please do. i'm a language user, not a designer. > what features

> I think you mean that classes are first order, but I don't want to put words in your mouth please do. i'm a language user, not a designer. > what features make javascript or Python a good reason to switch? or, for a mostly-disinterested (in programming, i mean), entrenched group of users like biologists, this question becomes more like, "what features would necessitate a switch?" same question for plan 9 vs. linux or any technology that's trying to do a better job of filling a need that's already being met. ...and, of course, the answer is that there are none. perl has notions of object-oriented-ness. it's possible to build in your own type-checking. the backwards compatibility thing is definitely helpful for the sciences, and it's free, so, like the fortran routines that parts of numpy ultimately wrap, their code can live on. i mentioned python and javascript not because i think they're such great languages but because i feel that they're in that position relative to perl. of course, unlike plan 9, python and javascript got a lot of users. > treat large files as if they were arrays/hashs (lists/dicts) without loading them into memory as such. not totally sure what you mean here. isn't that what databases are for? anyway, for a new code base that's going to evolve a lot and possibly get scrapped entirely (i.e. most hn readers' situation), python is worth checking out.