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Sun Apr 1 12:10:52 EDT 2001 · http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2001-April/117855.html

April Fool's troll, or an untimely but honest question?  Assuming the
latter:

"Balanced" (java, perl, and python): Have taught in-house classes in
each.  Used on WinXX, Linux, and assorted commercial *NIX's, doing
database, cgi, DQS distributed tasks, XML, and assorted numerical
tasks.  Haven't done clustered anything on WinXX.

"Fan": After several years of perl and java, found a kindred spirit in
python.  But then I started in Pascal-->Modula-2-->Modula-3, plus
sidetrips to lisp and prolog, so I guess clean syntax and clarity of
thought matter to me.

"Development environment": While you may mean some COTS IDE, please
note that Linux *is* an IDE, in ways that commercial *NIX's are not
and that WinXX certainly is not.

"Choose": My guess is you can do everything you need in Java.  There
is enough momentum (plus IBM's efforts) to make all the ecommerce toys
available.  Python has most of the toys, but you may have to scramble
to get the latest hyped silver bullet (DOM 3.0, XSchema, UDDI, etc.)

On the other hand, if you want to feel good about what you've done,
stick to python.  I find the code is fewer LOC than Java, is vastly
cleaner to XP or code review, and downright more fun.  Java feels like
"toy C++, with garbage collection", while python feels like "Scheme
with Wirthian syntax".  In other words, Java is inherently limited,
while in python the semantics can shift into another gear when you are
ready.  Also the edit-run-edit cycle is much faster in python on each
platform where I've had to compare them.

Of course, the whole point of open standards and open protocols is
that you don't have to choose one language.  I run cross-platform
mixed-langauge apps including (shudder) VB.  However, we move stuff to
web-based and python-based as fast as we can for maintainability and
portability.

"Dry Ice" <nomail at nomail.com> writes:

> First, I'd most like to hear from those
> who have some balanced experience at BOTH,
> as opposed to 'fans' of one or the other who
> have only dabbled in a secondary effort.
> 
> I would like to select one development environment
> to manage everything in a cluster-server project,
> from accounting-database to server CGI to distributed
> computing jobs.
> 
> Platform: Linux, and a few Windows machines- at
> least at the beginning.
> 
> If you had to choose...

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Python and Java Compared?