August 25, 2008
Choices
Here's a not-serious field guide for choosing a scripting language.
Perl
Choose perl if you think that scripting is for quick-n-dirty tasks, and your language ought to look like it. Or if you like how it looks when Snoopy swears.
Ruby
Choose ruby if you think that perl is pretty cool, but it should be even more powerful.
Python
Choose python if you think naming your throwaway variables "spam" and "egg" is really witty. Or if you want to write really cool stuff. (No bias here, no sir!)
JavaScript
Choose javascript if you're cowboy hacker or a genius hacker (or both).
VBScript
Choose vbscript if there's no hope for you whatsoever.
Lua
Choose lua if you like squeezing into small spaces.
Hey Ryan,
Here’s another one for you:
http://www.snobol4.org/
More ancient than Python and less readable than Perl
This isn’t the oldest thing around, but it’s the first I ran across during my University days.
For Perl, I think it’s one of the only languages where people can’t understand their own code after less than an hour.
Amir