Lager'd Statistics on language migration

[Paddy McCarthy]

Frustrated at being prevented from using Python at work I went
gunning for Perl.

Time to roll out some useless Google statistics to make me feel
better

Google Phrase count
------------- -----
"prefer perl to python" 26
"prefers perl to python" 0
"python to perl migration" 0
== ==
Perl over Python Total: 26

"prefer python to perl" 51
"prefers python to perl" 154
"perl to python migration" 785
== ===
Python over Perl Total: 980

These statistics have meaning. (It took my mind off this can
of UK Amstel for a start).

OK, rant over .

Pad.

 

[Harald Massa]

Paddy,

what google do you google?

I just checked out one number:

"perl to python migration" 785

giving me

Ergebnisse 11 - 20 von ungefähr 87.100 für perl to python migration. (0,20
Sekunden)

(on english: google found around 87.100 entries for "perl to python
migration")

the dark side is that most deal with one book of this title

Harald

 

[Peter Otten]

Paddy,

what google do you google?

I just checked out one number:

"perl to python migration" 785

giving me

Ergebnisse 11 - 20 von ungefähr 87.100 für perl to python migration. (0,20
Sekunden)

(on english: google found around 87.100 entries for "perl to python
migration")

He searched for "perl to python migration" _with_ the quotes, you _without_
and therefore you got many hits containing the words "perl", "python" and
"migration" ("to" is excluded because it is too common) but not the phrase
"perl to python migration", i. e. "python to perl migration" would be a
hit, too.

the dark side is that most deal with one book of this title

You are right here...

Peter

 

[Alex Martelli]

Frustrated at being prevented from using Python at work I went
gunning for Perl.

Time to roll out some useless Google statistics to make me feel
better

Google Phrase count
------------- -----
"prefer perl to python" 26
"prefers perl to python" 0
"python to perl migration" 0
== ==
Perl over Python Total: 26

"prefer python to perl" 51
"prefers python to perl" 154
"perl to python migration" 785
== ===
Python over Perl Total: 980

These statistics have meaning. (It took my mind off this can
of UK Amstel for a start).

Cool! So, I double checked:

"prefer python to ruby" 21
"prefers python to ruby" 0
"ruby to python migration" 0

"prefer ruby to python" 260
"prefers ruby to python" 0
"python to ruby migration" 0

Judging on the "prefer" only, Ruby > Python > Perl. Check:

"prefer ruby to perl" 5
"prefer perl to ruby" 0

Still OK, I guess. So, my working hypothesis would be: people tend to
post about preferring a newer / less widespread language over an older /
more widespread one, more frequently than they post about the reverse
preference. Why people compare Python with either Ruby or Perl MUCH
more often than Perl and Ruby with each other, I dunno...


Alex

 

[Carlos Ribeiro]

Still OK, I guess. So, my working hypothesis would be: people tend to
post about preferring a newer / less widespread language over an older /
more widespread one, more frequently than they post about the reverse
preference. Why people compare Python with either Ruby or Perl MUCH
more often than Perl and Ruby with each other, I dunno...

I think that Perl --> Python is a natural path, in historic terms --
both languages having a similar age and maturity. Perl is older - 1.0
was announced in 1987. At this time, Guido was already working on
Python, but the 0.9 was only released in 1991... But now, being 17 x
13 is not a huge different (in language lifetimes, anyway).

As for Ruby, it's a different matter. I think that Ruby is a little
farther away from Perl in the language spectrum than Python, but I
have no hard data to back my claim. It's just how I feel about it, and
it may be more related to the timeline (Perl --> Python --> Ruby, so
Ruby got to learn from both and to position itself as an alternative
to Python). Everyone wants to be the new kid on the block, in this
case.

p.s. I must be with too many time in my hands lately to be answering
this sort of question Time to find real work to do.

--
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: (e-mail address removed)
mail: (e-mail address removed)

 

[Alex Martelli]

As for Ruby, it's a different matter. I think that Ruby is a little
farther away from Perl in the language spectrum than Python, but I
have no hard data to back my claim. It's just how I feel about it, and

I think that Ruby has so many things in common with Perl -- mutable
strings, regular expressions as built-ins rather than a module you need
to import, even variable names which can be control characters...! --
that I'd definitely have to consider it far closer to Perl than Python
is.

Can you point out some specific behavior, some language-design choice,
where Ruby is farther away from Perl than Python is?


Alex

 

[Carlos Ribeiro]

Can you point out some specific behavior, some language-design choice,
where Ruby is farther away from Perl than Python is?

Ok, I deserve it Short answer -- I think Ruby's object-oriented
structure is closer to Python's than Perl's. I don't know many
programmers that start writing Perl's code in object-oriented terms; a
lot of stuff is just thrown out as simple (unreadable) scripts. On the
other hand, it seems to be easier to write object oriented code in
Python, even for simple scripts.

Long answer: I evaluated Ruby a few years ago. All that I can say is
the impression left by the language after a short review. I think that
Ruby benefited, in historical terms, to start with a lot of features
that were relatively late additions to both Perl and Python.

Perl started as a hack. I'm not saying that in any derrogatory sense -
it's just the way it is (or was). For example, object orientation was
a late addition to the language. Python started as a careful and well
structured approach to language design, adding new features one by
one. Ruby's approach is (not surprisingly) an attempt at a mid-term --
starting with a well defined and clean framework, but still trying to
make things as concise as possible. Many of the first published Ruby
examples were written to show how concise some things could be
implemented -- I remember seeing examples such as sending email, or
loading a URL as samples of concise Ruby code. But all examples, and a
lot of Ruby documentation, enforces its object-oriented nature above
all. So in this sense I think Ruby is closer to Python than it is to
Perl.

I hope it sounded convincing ;-)


--
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: (e-mail address removed)
mail: (e-mail address removed)

 

[Alex Martelli]

Ok, I deserve it Short answer -- I think Ruby's object-oriented
structure is closer to Python's than Perl's. I don't know many

Agreed, but while this may meen dist(Ruby,Python)<distr(Ruby,Perl) in
some sense, it definitely has no implications re your thesis that
dist(Ruby,Perl)>dist(Python,Perl).

all. So in this sense I think Ruby is closer to Python than it is to
Perl.

I hope it sounded convincing ;-)

Sure, and I wouldn't argue either pro or con THIS thesis, but what you
originally stated was different: you were comparing distances of the
other two languages from Perl, not of the other two from Ruby!


Alex

 

[Andrew Dalke]

Alex:

Can you point out some specific behavior, some language-design choice,
where Ruby is farther away from Perl than Python is?

Everything is derived from a base object type in Ruby.
Defintely not in Perl, while in Python things are moving
more and more that way.

Ruby started off (from what I can tell) with automatic
widening of platform ints into bignums. Python more
recently did that, while Perl doesn't.


Andrew
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Martin DeMello]

Can you point out some specific behavior, some language-design choice,
where Ruby is farther away from Perl than Python is?

Ruby's functional constructs (map, reduce, zip etc) are method calls on
enumerable objects, rather than perl/python-style orthogonal application
of a lambda to an enumerable.

martin