As an experienced developer, I often get asked – which is better for my needs, Perl or Python? While there‘s no simple answer, by looking at key factors like history, usage trends and technical capabilities, you can determine which scripting language may be the better fit for your specific requirements.
Let me walk you through it…
Perl vs Python: A Brief History
Larry Wall first developed Perl in 1987 to make report processing and system administration tasks easier on UNIX systems. He combined his background in linguistics with computer science to create the Practical Extraction and Report Language (Perl).
Soon Perl became the "duct tape" tying early web systems together – used heavily in CGI scripting and throughout the LAMP stack. Perl ushered in an era where full-stack developers used a versatile scripting language on the backend to build dynamic websites.
In contrast, Python was conceived by Guido Van Rossum in 1989 as a general purpose language designed for readability and rapid application development. First released in 1991, Python built on the lessons learned from previous scripting languages like ABC, Perl and others to focus on clean syntax and consistency.
So while Perl led the way in making system administration and CGI programming more accessible, Python entered as a refinement on existing languages with emphasis on developer ease-of-use and maintainability.
The Rise and Fall of Popularity
Perl dominated as the most loved language in the 1990s and into the 2000s. But over the past decade, Python has exploded in popularity while Perl use has dramatically declined as seen in this chart:
Based on my experience, this change stemmed from factors both technical and social…
On the technical front, Python‘s simplicity lowered the barrier to entry while enabling more scale. Meanwhile Perl struggled with versioning and adoption issues.
Socially, Perl lost mindshare as theexponential growth of web development created new programmer demographics who preferred Python‘s approach. Prominent universities began teaching Python over Perl as well.
So while legacy systems still rely heavily on Perl, Python sits firmly among today‘s most popular languages well suited for modern application development.
Now that you understand their historical context, let‘s dive deeper into comparing Perl and Python…
Perl vs Python: Key Similarities and Differences
At the highest level, both Perl and Python are open-source scripting languages enabling developers to get more done with less code. But they differ greatly in their syntax and capabilities as seen in this comparison table:
| Perl | Python | |
| Designed for | Practical tasks like text processing and system administration | Readability, simplicity and ease-of-use |
| Release Date | 1987 | 1991 |
| Speed Benchmarks | 2x faster in string operations | 3x faster in math computations |
| Syntax Style | Dense, cryptic, hard to read | Clear, consistent, easy to read |
| Main Use Cases | System administration, web backend/CGI, text processing | Web apps/services, GUI apps, data science, ML |
So you can see each language takes a different approach – Perl emphasizes practical use over aesthetics while Python focuses on beauty, consistency and developer experience even if that means being slower.
To better understand how they differ in practice, let‘s examine some code side-by-side…
Code Comparison
This snippet illustrates Python‘s use of whitespace indentation and overall aim for clean code:
names = ["John", "Jane"]
length = len(names)
print(names[0])While Perl‘s punctuation-heavy syntax often does more in less space:
@names = ("John", "Jane");
$length = @names;
print $names[0];In my years of development I‘m much faster coding in Perl but constantly working in Python has made context switching painful. So consider if living in one language full-time is worth sacrificing capabilities you may want.
Now let‘s explore those capabilities around text processing and system administration where Perl dominates over Python…
Perl‘s Specialization in Key Areas
Perl was specially designed for processing text files and data. Python provides text manipulation functionality, but Perl is hard to beat for basing entire applications around string parsing, regular expressions and file input/output.
A few examples of where Perl shines:
- Processing log files
- Extracting data from text-based reports
- Importing and reformatting content
- Generating dynamic reports
- System/network administration automation
Perl also remains ubiquitous in legacy web environments:
- CGI scripting backend
- LAMP stack deployments
- Sysadmin toolchains
So I advise using Perl over Python in cases that involve significant amounts of text wrangling or supporting older infrastructure.
Python‘s General Appeal
While Perl retains specialty advantages, Pythons‘s simplicity, vast libraries and ease of integration drive its mainstream popularity.
As evidenced by extensive frameworks like Django, Flask and Pyramid, Python is exceptionally well-suited for building modern web applications. The wide availability of web hosting with Python pre-installed makes deploying these apps convenient.
Additionally, Python‘s mathematics/computation capabilities recently made it a darling for fields like:
- Scientific Computing
- Machine Learning
- Data Analysis
- Artificial Intelligence
The Python ecosystem also provides developer friendly tools for building polished GUI apps – bringing code to life for more visual end-users.
Finally, Python allows organizations to build up future developers. New programmers in college or bootcamps typically learn Python first given its gentle learning curve compared to cryptic Perl.
So while Perl retains specialty advantages, Pythons‘s simplicity, vast libraries and ease of integration drive its mainstream popularity.
The Bottom Line
Perl and Python each have their strengths based on design philosophy tradeoffs. In my experience advising organizations on technology decisions:
- **Use Perl** when text processing and regex are central to tasks OR legacy system constraints require it
- **Prefer Python** for web apps, services, GUI apps and other cases where development speed, code maintainability and readability matter more than raw processing throughput
- Support existing Perl legacy systems if replatforming costs outweigh benefits
- Build new projects in Python for easier developer hiring and future-proofing
So while Perl persists, Python owns mindshare as the language of choice for modern application development.
I hope exploring their key differences here provides context to decide what best fits your needs. Let me know if any other questions come up!