I was asked the other day whether a newcomer to programming who's going to be working in the bioinformatic field should learn Perl or Python. I'm posting my response up here (minus any personal references) as it's a question other have asked too.

Python is a superb language, that makes heavy use of "Object Oriented" techniques ... which we explain on our courses where appropriate.  OO techniques are particularly suitable for
(a) larger applications or suites of programs with a lot of code shared and
(b) projects where the programming staff are spending a high proportion of their time on the application(s).  
The learning curve is a little longer than with a non-OO language, and for people who are programming as only a small part of their jobs it is probably not the best route forward ... unless (another parameter for the equation) they already have access to a good library of modules written in Python.

Perl is a language that can be used in many ways.  It can be used for simpler and more complex applications too, but its very flexibility means that it's not the easiest of languages to learn for some people.  I started the previous paragraph by saying "Python is a superb language".  So is Perl.  And there's a lot of standard bioinformatics code and examples out there in Perl.

Either Perl or Python should be fine for you as a first language.   BUT ... we find that our potential customers for Python training tend to be converting from other languages, and for that reason it's not practical for us to advertise a public "learning to program in Python" course. Not even Mark Lutz (Author of the O'Reilly book on learning Python) offers such a course - I've sat in on his course in the USA and it was superb, but it assumed that the trainees were converting from another language.

My 2 pence.

Python seems to be a cleaner language than Perl. Both languages do very similar things in very similar ways, yet you know what Python returns but you guess what Perl returns.

There are more Perl gurus around than Python's though, and it seems more jobs are around for the Perl mongers.

No clear winner though, Perl has CPAN, and that's its real wealth.

Python has the 'Vaults of Parnassus' which is a lot like CPAN. (If a little inconsistent IMHO though).

I'm a Perlite BTW, but interested in Python et al.
Most of my work for about 10 years has been Perl, with brief breaks of TCL and Java and some electronics.
Occasionally see Python mentioned, but I'm not current with it.  Perl has been a good earner for me.

b

(my 1 ruble)

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