Ok well I will try to be unbiased but full disclosure I am a real hard core Perl programmer and I admittedly am not a huge Python fan.
Both have their good and bad points.
‎
The python philosophy is to enforce good programing practices by enforcing indentation.‎
‎
The Perl philosophy it there are many ways to do it.‎
‎
A little bit of a primer one of  the biggest motivation of the original writer of Python was he hated how sloppy Perl programmers  were and wanted to create a language that enforced what he thought were good coding practices. By the way any one who disagrees a quick google search for linux journal articles circa 2001 can back me up with his own words.

The truth is ‎I've seen good and bad code in both languages. An enforcing indentation doesn't help especially when the the interpreter can't tell the difference between a tab and the equivalent number of spaces on that platform.

Perl got an image Problem thanks to a 2002 April fools joke by Larry Wall the writer of the language which oddly back fired on him. He announced Perl 6 was the new Perl engine which would also be able to run code in a VM in any other language. He also created a code repo for it. A couple of days later he was shocked to find working code in the repo. So he rolled with it and started to put together extremely ambitious specs for Perl 6. Now Perl should have gone through several major releases since then but because of the lofty goals of Perl 6 it didn't. That's not to say the language has been static. No Perl 5 program I've written in the last 10 years will not run on a version of Perl 5 from 2002 or even in most cases a version from 2005. To People who know the language well what we are calling Perl 6 should probably be called Perl 9.

As for Python it's become popular and definitely Red Hat's favorite scripting language. It's got a great following and is used for many things.

As for modules Perl 5 still has more but many of the are dated, Python is catching up and it has the benefit of youth and popularity.
For example Amazon AWS has a Python API, but not a Perl API. I've been debating about writing one my self and in the Perl tradition there are 2 ways I can do it build on LWP (lib WWW Perl) to create a native Perl module, or take the lazy route by create an "XS" module which wraps the C API. The advantage of the XS method is I can run a script and have a clumsy but working module in seconds, then spend a couple of hours to make it easy to use.

What you will here is Perl is dead, but the truth is most people use it on a daily basis and don't know it. Perl is still the swiss army chainsaw of scripting languages.

Honestly for support on learning Python is easier.
With Perl if you can get to the point where you really understand the power of anonymous references, it's still a very fast and flexible language.

In conclusion
Either one is good. Learn them both at least superficially. Tinker and play with them and see which one is right for you.



  Original Message  
From: Maarten
Sent: Friday, December 30, 2016 03:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Perl 6 just hit

Hello,

Saw this discussion and found it interesting, got a somewhat half on 
topic question. I've been trying to decide on a language to learn, 
python and perl both stood out. There seems to be various discussions of 
why one is better than the other, and the pro's and con's of both. From 
what I've seen perl has been around longer than python and there are 
plenty of places to ask for help and lots of perl modules to use in your 
code. Python on the other hand seems newer, also has modules(probably 
less than perl), and has quite bit of community around too. However 
lately I've been seeing that there are more python projects than perl, 
making me think python might be the better one to go for. So I am more 
wondering what peoples opinions on this mailing list are when it comes 
to python or perl, that way I can consider the opinion of people who 
have been programming for a while before I make a decision to what I am 
going to do ;)

On 2016-12-30 02:03, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> I couldn't agree more, usually when I go to an open source event if
> the crowd is a good one they wind up going some where else after the
> event is over and chat for hours.
> Thanks for the links, I'll look into them even though I'm on too many
> mailing lists already‎ :).
> 
>   Original Message  
> From: ToddAndMargo
> Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 18:24
> To: Paul Robert Marino
> Cc: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Perl 6 just hit
> 
> On 12/28/2016 01:09 PM, Paul Robert Marino wrote:
>> there is one for active Perl 6
>> projects but they don't want any one who doesn't already have an
>> active Perl 6 project to attend. I asked them very politely for a
>> clarification on their policy and didn't not get a response. I didn't
>> get a reply but I know other Perl 5 programmers who showed up looking
>> to get porting tips, and were asked to leave because they weren't
>> currently Perl 6 programmers, which is a very poor approach to take if
>> you really want to rebuild the Perl community.
> 
> I have found in all my years in this biz that when so called "experts" 
> get
> arrogant and condescending, it is usually because they don't
> know what they are doing. The real experts love to talk and talk
> about what they have learned. Sort of like letting the air out
> of a compressed air container.
> 
> There is a Perl 6 mailing list with a bunch of great guys
> over at
> 
> http://lists.perl.org/list/perl6-users.html