FWD: Re: Programming / scripting languages in tech-writing

[Aahz <aahz -at- pythoncraft -dot- com>]

----- Forwarded message -----
From: aahz -at- pythoncraft -dot- com (Aahz)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.techwr-l
Subject: Re: Programming / scripting languages in tech-writing
Date: 17 May 2002 02:01:27 -0400

In article <3CD6738B -dot- 4080406 -at- axionet -dot- com>,
Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com> wrote:
>
>Over the weekend, I was fiddling around with Perl. I don't know how far 
>I'll get (not far, if past performance is anything to go on), but my 
>explorations made me curious:
>
>Does anybody else on the list use a programming or scripting language in 
>their work? If so, which one? And what sort of tasks do you use them for?

I'm mildly surprised to see so many responses mentioning Perl and so few
mentioning Python.  My surprise is mild because I know that Perl is
still much more popular than Python; however, I *am* surprised because
I'd figure that a bunch of writers would prefer the readability of
Python.

What I'm currently doing with Python is writing about it so that more
people will start using it.  ;-)  (The book contract I mentioned in
another post is for an intermediate-level book on Python.)  An example
of the kind of thing I personally use Python for is converting a simple
structured-text document into XML that then gets run through another
Python script written by someone else to create a PDF document (the
3rd-party script is called PythonPoint).

Here's a short snippet of code that demonstrates why I think Python is
more readable than Perl:

Perl:

    while (<>) {
        print;
        }

Python:

    import sys
    for line in sys.stdin:
        sys.stdout.write(line)
-- 
Aahz (aahz -at- pythoncraft -dot- com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"In the end, outside of spy agencies, people are far too trusting and
willing to help."  --Ira Winkler

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