I saw this over at the humour page of the documentation for the Python scrpiting/programming language. (Yes, you heard me, the documentation has a 'humour' page. And that's not even why I love the language.) I thought some of you might like it.

I think I'm off to go and cross-post it everywhere else I can think of.

Subject: Python versus Perl: A humorous look
From: some e-mail address
To: some other e-mail address
Date: 10 Jul 1999 01:45:07 -0700

This has been percolating in the back of my mind for a while. It's a scene from _The Empire Strikes Back_ reinterpreted to serve a valuable moral lesson for aspiring programmers.

--
EXTERIOR: DAGOBAH -- DAY
With Yoda strapped to his back, Luke climbs up one of the many thick vines that grow in the swamp until he reaches the Dagobah statistics lab. Panting heavily, he continues his exercises -- grepping, installing new packages, logging in as root, and writing replacements for two-year-old shell scripts in Python.

YODA: Code! Yes. A programmer's strength flows from code maintainability. But beware of Perl. Terse syntax... more than one way to do it... default variables. The dark side of code maintainability are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you when code you write. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

LUKE: Is Perl better than Python?

YODA: No... no... no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.

LUKE: But how will I know why Python is better than Perl?

YODA: You will know. When your code you try to read six months from now.