TUISHIMI  That whole "indentation" claim used AGAINST Python really irks me. It is one of the best features of one of the most easy-to-learn languages available.

I agree with your comments.  
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WRELEVEN  Since most developers already indent in a compatible way it's not the main issue. I know I felt weird about losing the { and } brackets though. They were like visual safety belts. I'm comfortable with Python now, I'm happen to trade them in for a better language.  
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ANONYMOUS  Ruby.  
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TED  Ruby is definitely #2, but suffers from it's cryptic Perl-like syntax which does nothing but reduce legibility.  
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ANONYMOUS  "Be a better programmer ..." WRONG! One of the worst "features" of Python is that indentation is part of the syntax. Bah! Learn a lower level language so you understand what happens under the hood, and then tackle an OO language.

If I need to change a list URLs into a list of HTML links I'll use a quick sed script, thank you.  
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MARK EVERITT  The enforced syntax debate is well known and argued elsewhere, in forums specifically for arguments such as this. The result is that you get people who do like it, and people who don't. I learnt C first myself, but when it comes to rapid prototyping, and scripting, python is excellent. I use it as a replacement for Matlab, and it performs very well indeed.

For learner programmers, python is great to teach syntax of course. An alternative starting language such as C gives you more of an idea about how machines work, but this can be extremely intimidating for those just starting out.

Posting about learning a language on here is perhaps moot, due to the MacPython 2.3 installation present by default which is fine for begginers programming. A new user certainly shouldn't start with beta software.  
(Version 2.5b1)

ASMEURER  I probably would have used regular expressions in a text editor to do that.   
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