Joost,

Some one from computer science told me that perl is dying language, it will be replaced by Python or Ruby.

Do you have any idea about the language choice? Have you seen any one using Python or Ruby in the accounting research?

I wish to learn one of these for future content analysis.

Thanks,

hi Zenghui,

I suppose everybody has their preferences with scripting languages.

I prefer to use PHP mainly I because the language pretty well. For smaller jobs I use Perl. The strength of PHP/Perl is that it is very well integrated with web, which at the same time is a weakness.
If you need to program something that needs a graphical interface (like a form with textfields, etc), then making some web pages with PHP/Perl and mySql for data storage is great.
For example, for one paper I was categorizing the narrative of NT filings (late filings). The script retrieved the relevant part, output it to a web page. I had a form with checkboxes etc, that I filled in and after submitting it showed the next filing. (This works faster than entering the info in Excel).
If you need no human interaction (the script can run by itself), then Python would probably be better.

I have one colleage that uses Python for web data harvesting (which could have been done in PHP/Perl as well). I suppose Python is (much) easier to use than Perl. I think the ‘object oriented’ part of Perl is not intuitive.
Historically, content analysis (pattern matching) comes from Perl, but other languages usually support this. Even SAS has some pattern matching.

I have never heard of Ruby, actually.

best regards,

Joost

Joost,

That is great summary.

Thank you so much!

hi Zenghui,

You’re welcome

This post may help:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/programming-9/ruby-vs-perl-vs-python-849423/

best regards,

Joost

Very useful link.

Thanks

HI everyone,
You know the last few years of my life have been filled with an as yet unfulfilled to learn some real programming (see last post). A few months ago I sat down to really learn Python, because I had a read a lot online about how it is a great beginner’s language (though I’m not really a complete newbie at this point). Anyway, I’ve been at it for a while and I’m liking how things are going.But before I had started Python, I had a brief brush with Perl a year ago. At first glance it seemed something I had dreamed of. After struggling through memory management in C++ and Java and sitting through long compile times (which are really irritating if you’re a new programmer making lots of mistakes), Perl’s write and run was a dream and built in memory management made me a lot happier.