"The plural of anecdote is not data." It's a pithy quote, but it isn't QOTW in my book, simply because it isn't true in general. Talk to some paleoclimatologists.
There is no way to get uniform measures of ancient climate. What should we do then? Should we ignore the information we have? Are the fortuitously preserved fossils of the very deep past to be ignored just because we can't get an unbiased sample? In fact, the more difficult it is to get systematic data, the more valuable the anecdote. There is a number that represents the character ratio for equivalent skill applied to equivalent tasks across all domains to which both languages are applied. A single programmer's results on this matter do in fact constitute a sample. A single sample is not a very good estimator, but it is not devoid of skill or information either. In the present case Edward gave us some advice that he thought he was making a fair comparison, one which would appear counterintuitive to anyone who has worked in both languages. Perlists tend to giggle and cackle every time they save a keystroke; Pythonistas do not have this personality quirk. If Python is nevertheless terser it is a strong argument in Python's favor vis-a-vis Perl. Edward also asked if others had similar experiences. If others did, the assemblage of their opinions would in fact consttitute data. I have no idea why people are giving him such grief over this request. My only data point, er, anecdotal evidence, is this. To take things to an unrealistic extreme, consider the puzzle at http://pycontest.net (Python Golf). When I first thought about this, I assumed that Perl would defeat Python in the character count, but as I worked at the puzzle I came to the (to me) counterintuitive realization that it probably would not. I'd be interested in seeing the results of an inter-language golf contest. Of course, such games don't tell us much about real code, but I'm inclined to agree with Edward's impression that Python is, in practice, terse compared to Perl, and I, too, would like to hear about other examples, and because I think the plural of "anecdote" is, in fact, "data". mt -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list