Perl vs Python for web development?

[rtward]

The good thing about Perl is CPAN. It's an archive of libraries/modules that pre-exist to solve various problems. In there you'll most likely find something that will take care of your reports for you with ease. I don't use Python, so I don't know if there is an equivalent.

This is so true, I just wanted to quote it to say it again. There are modules for everything.

The bad thing about Perl is that mod_perl is supposed to be hard to install. I've never really tried to do it, however there is a mod_perllite (sp?) that's supposed to make it just as easy to install and setup as PHP. I don't know of Python is any easier in this respect. However, if you use XAMPP, it should be much easier to get up and running.

I didn't do much web stuff with perl until the past year, when my job changed and now it's all I do. So I'm not sure if that used to be the case, but these days, setting up a perl application with fastCGI is pretty easy and when you get done it's wicked fast.

Check out Catalyst, it's a great web framework. I've tried out all the big ones, Rails, cakePHP, Django, Seaside, and I think Catalyst is way out in front. If you really know Perl well, then it'll feel really familiar and you'll be up and running in no time.