[TriLUG] Broad question

[Bill Trautman via TriLUG]

On 9/4/2023 1:29 PM, William Sutton via TriLUG wrote:
> I'm an old Perl hand, but keep seeing newer stuff with Python and other modern "sexy" languages.  I echo the comment about Python introducing breakages periodically.  That said, given the original 
> question positing Java as an alternative ... just don't.  Aside from the pain factor, at $WORK we recently went through an audit because Oracle is getting touchy about licensing their JDK.  I can 
> see a time when they get touchy about openjedk.  Also, as far as web apps go, I see lots of places (and browsers) deprecating Java as a security risk.
>
> One more negative about Python:  the use of indentation to determine scope.  That's just a horrible idea.
>
> William Sutton
Let me set the stage... I had 20 years with Java, It also had breaking changes early on.   There was a 9 year transition period for the breaking changes in python 3.x.

I have used C, C++, Java, Perl, JS and probably another 2 dozen languages in my 40 years of developing software.   I have no issue with the indentation.  Note that its more about language structure 
than scope.  some indentation is related to scope but not all.

>
> On Sat, 2 Sep 2023, Stephen P. Schaefer via TriLUG wrote:
>
>> My experience with Python is that its ecosystem introduces breaking changes every half dozen years or so, whereas perl 5 code from the 1990s just works.  Maybe I just got lucky with the perl 
>> modules I experienced.  As for readability, I tried finding a bug in the Red Hat/CentOS subscription-manager python code once (wasn't accepting our internal certificate authority when communicating 
>> with Foreman (if it had been Satellite it would have been Red Hat's problem)), and I was not enthused.   Python's churn may be good for keeping one employed.....

It's good that things just work in Perl because the syntax is a bit challenging and understanding and correcting a large body of work can be challenging if not well written.  (of course that can be 
issue for almost all languages).


Bill Trautman