Docunext

Did some research on Python this morning. I like it and I don't like it. It seems obscure to me - why all the wacky names? And why the aversion to MySQL and PHP? Seems like every article I read on Python, they never make any references to PHP or MySQL.

Is python really off in its own world? It just might be. Seems like a lot of the python projects I read about really invent their own versions of stuff (like data storage formats and template engines) that other languages share amongst themselves. Examples such as TAL, static file storage, and kid make me confused when I can keep my data and templates free by using XSL and SQL. And if an RDBMS isn't possible, why not use hash dbm's and perl?

In my experience, I've noticed a few really good things about python:

• Python files usually use the ".py" extension, and these get compiled (?) into python.pyc automatically
• Python is really picky about indenting
• Python can be used to write a simple script, but can also be used to develop fully featured desktop applications

I've had good luck with the following python apps:

• Trac
• Cacheability Engine

Questions:

• If you don't want to use PHP because of Zend engine licensing issues, why not use perl?
• Can perl be compiled the same way as python?