Perl To Python Migration

PYTHON BACKGROUND

Python's original development was somewhat different. From its inception Python was designed as an object-oriented language. The basic data types, which closely mirror Perl's in most respects, are all objects. The reliance on objects means that mentally, even for basic operations, you need to think not in terms of functions and operators, but methods instead. As a quick example, to get the keys from a hash in Perl you use:

@keys = keys %hash;

but in Python (where hashes are called dictionaries) we do:

keys = dict.keys

Aside from talking to files (which Python treats as objects, and therefore has its own sequence of methods), all other operations, including regular expressions, network access, and communication with the operating ...