Perl vs Python

Differences Between Perl vs Python

Perl is open-source, object-oriented programming used for building and implementing applications in unix systems, similar to python. There are a few of the major differences between Perl vs Python. Perl requires a semicolon to indicate the end of the line, but python doesn’t need it. Though Perl is not easy to learn, it makes text processing simple & short. Whereas Python is easy to learn, and it requires functions for text processing.

Head to Head Comparison Between Perl and Python (Infographics)

Below is the top 8 comparison between Perl and Python:

Key Differences Between Perl and Python

Despite having many similarities, both Perl vs Python have many differences as well; we will look into these difference between Perl and Python in details:

1. Perl, we can say “Practical Extraction and Report Language”, but it is not official; on the other hand, Python is named after the famous artist of his time “, Monty Python”.

2. Perl was invented by Larry Wall in 1987 while Python by Guido van Rossum in 1989.

3. Python: First of all, there is only one way to do get things done, but if there is another way too, then it will replace the existing.

For example: in Python 2.0 to print message command is as:

Print “Hi, this is a text message from Python 2.0.”

But when they introduced Python 3.0, then the same thing can be done as

Print(“Hi, this is a text message from Python 3.0”)

Perl: If there is another way to do the thing, then include it also, i.e. not to replace existing but to add a new way as well. (For example: See the way to write if statement in comparison section)

4. Perl is considered for text processing which helps in reporting, while Python is now a general-purpose language and currently being used in many fields.

Perl and Python Comparison Tabl

Following is the Comparison table between Perl and Python

BASIS FOR COMPARISON	Perl	Python
Command Line	If you are a window user, then after installing Perl (from http://strawberryperl.com with 64 and 32 Version), you can open a common window which will look like this. C:>perl -e <you can write Perl code here> If you are Linux or Unix user, then you can get the same thing like this $perl  -e <perl code goes here>	For window user, after installing Python from Python.org in 32 or 64 bit version, then the code prompt will look like this to run the python code from the python script file. C: >python script.py (Here script.py is python file which contains code) For Linux user, the same prompt will look like this $python script.py
Whitespaces	Perl does not care about whitespaces	Python deals with whitespaces and will give syntax error if whitespaces are not according to Python.
Comment	The statement started with # will be considered as a comment. # This is an Inline comment in Perl for documentation in Perl, we use = and =cut For example: = This is a comment for Perl but you can use it as documentation also =cut	# This is an inline comment in Python Three inverted commas are also can be used as documentation or comment “This is for python and can be used in documentation as well as in the comment.”
Statement End	In Perl Statement ends with;	While in Python; it is not required to end the program statement as it deals with whitespaces.
Way of writing Code	1: Perl provides freedom to write same code in different styles. For example, take if statement You can declare the If statement in the following ways: if ($var1 != $var2) { print “Both are not same\n”; } unless ($var1 == $var2) { print “Both are same\n”; }———————————————– print “Both are same\n” unless $var1 == $var2 ; print “Both are not same\n” if $var1 != $var2 ;———————————————– $var1 == $var2 || print “Both are same\n”; $var1 != $var2 or print “Both are not same\n”; 2: Statement starts and ends with curly braces { }if (($var1 != $var2) {print “hello world”;}	1: Python do not believe as such and force to write code in its own Pythonic way. For if statement, you get things like this: if(var1 == var2) : print(“Both are same”) 2: Python uses indentation for the same (as you can see above if statement)
Regular Expression	Part of the language which makes text-processing easy and short.	Need to deal with functions and method for regex
Easier to Learn	In comparison to Python, Perl is not easy to learn.	Python is easy to learn
File Extension	.pl For example, myDocument.pl	.py Example: myFile.py A subset of computer science where the study of data is done by using different methods and technologies

Conclusion

We saw some of the major differences between Perl vs Python, the two languages, but many of us believe that everything has its own advantages and disadvantages, and we do not go black and white. When you are familiar with any language, have earned a lot, then that becomes easy for you.

As we can say, Perl provides you to include a different way to do things, and on the other hand, Python restrict you. However, an easier way, and this is why Python is gaining popularity in all aspects while Perl is still in use and still has vast community support. Still, when we see things worldwide, Python is dominating with a vast number of packages that support all computing environments.

So can we say Perl is useless nowadays? The answer is No. Perl is still in use in many of the Linux supporting systems in a real-time scenario where we require dealing with text processing a lot. But when you ask me for a career perspective, I will suggest going ahead with Python because it is being used in many modern technologies like Machine Learning and Data Science field; this is simplicity and ease of use.

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