Hello, my two eurocent on this issue.
Any language can be made readable or unreadable. Personally, I think that any program is readable if it has complete, up to date embedded comments explaining what is happening and meaningful variable names, even if the actual code looks like ancient Greek, scrambled. About this particular project: let's just do it in whatever language the majority of the volunteers is ALREADY proficient with, not with the one which the majority of the list thinks better for any reason. Otherwise it will never get done. Unless, of course, it already exist in another language and we just have to port it to the command line. Personally, I am very good with Perl and know (almost) nothing of Python, just because it happened so. I will help even if the thing is made in Python, it will be a good occasion to learn it, but of course will be less helpful in debugging. So, what language do the volunteers know better? Ciao, Marco Fioretti -- Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple his world. To get the medium's magic to work for one's aims rather than against them is to attain literacy. Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Scientific American, Sep. 1984