> Python is one of those things I must learn one day and keep promising > myself I will RSN. However, I can code shell scripts and Perl, and > whenever I have a Q&D job to do, it's so easy to reuse what one knows. Nothing wrong with using what works. But you do owe it to yourself to take Python for a drive. It's a very easy and quick language to learn, primarily because there's very few exceptions or special cases or weird syntax rules. Specifically for the Perl guy looking to see what's all the fuss with Python, you should read the article by Eric Raymond: http://pythonology.org/success&story=esr > Against Java in particular and Python is that I'm using Regular > Expressions, and unless REs have surfaced in Java since I learned it, > that's an after-market addon, and while I expect Python can do them, I > really don't want to confuse myself with yet another implementation of REs. Java is a low-level langauage and not very comparable to the so-called "scripting" languages like Perl, Python, or Ruby. Python does have really nice REs. Probably not quite as powerful as Perl, but close, and perhaps not as "dense". Python's REa are quite respectable and pretty easy, especially when combined with many other Pythonic techniques: http://docs.python.org/lib/module-re.html Good luck with the PDF thing. BTW, you may still want to look at ReportLab if you're itching to dive into Python at some point. Unlike most PDF toolkits, ReportLab is surprisingly high-level and lets you do some very impressive things quickly with very little code. -- Deron Meranda
