unsolicitedDave

I've read many discussions about the relative merits of either Python or Perl. The honest truth for most people is that it is more efficient in the short-term just to use what you know than to learn a whole new system. However, I believe strongly that in the long haul, you'll be happier using Python than Perl. I don't want to have a debate about it, but I do want to share the one true reason.

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Lets convert the following Python fragment to Perl:

#!/usr/bin/python

a = { 'b' : { 'c' : 1 } }

for i in a.values():
  for k in i.values():
    print k

It is simply a nested loop iteration over a hashtable of hashtables of ints. However, in Perl, this requires a confusing spurious %{ $i }. That's alot of punctuation. This punction is basically telling perl that even though $i needs to be a scalar inside the context of the foreach loop, it should force it to be a hash for the purpose of the input to the next foreach. I challenge you to show us all another way. Here is the code:

#/usr/bin/perl
$a{"k"}{"r"} = 1;

foreach $i (values %a) {
  foreach $j (values %{ $i }) {
    print "$j\n";
  }
}

Posted by jeske at August 15, 2003 5:02 PM