FreeBSD Security Survey

[Avleen Vig]

On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 11:20:08AM +0100, Craig Edwards wrote:
> I agree, however, i do not like the gentoo dependency upon python for
> its package management system. It has not broken on me yet, however i
> can imagine if it does it would be a nightmare to fix, as python is
> not a trivial program. If FreeBSD ever were to attempt an emerge-like
> system, it would be convenient imho (although probably less
> maintainable?) to have it done in something smaller and easier to
> manage (and easier repair when broken?) such as perl or shellscript.

Python is incredibly trivial.
It's much more trivial than perl, that's for sure.
I don't want to get into a holy war about languages on-list (anyone
interested can email me off list).

Having used perl for 5+ years, and starting to use Python in the last
year, I can tell you that Python has a very similar learning curve, but
is "better" for new (and old) programmers for several reasons:
  Much more consistant syntax
   - From this you get code that is easier to read, more portable
     between developers, etc
  Designed to be object oriented rather than OO being an after thought

These two things alone (IMO) make a HUGE difference to writing apps of
any size.
Plus Python's traceback feature is really awesome (perl may have one, I
haven't seen it, but with python it's just there, always).