Perl, Python or the good old C ?

The C language is definitely a good one and is capable of doing almost everything. However, in modern times when processing power is increasing everyday in leaps and bounds, perhaps its time to reconsider its effectiveness.

Although it still holds its forte when it comes to development of system softwares and those where performance time is of greater importance than development time, more casual programming tasks and general programming routines like say a 10-digit calculator or even a spell checker, might be done with equal effectiveness using a modern language like Perl or Python, where development time is much less owing to the use of a large number of easily available library files.

Now this effective reduction of time in the coding phase might be a trade-off for proper resource utilisation, but whereas C demands strict coding principles, requiring more time with less resource, these may require more reourse but that problem is negligible because of the rapid increase in processing power, coupled with the availability of cheaper and bigger main memory.

Hence, its important to know them all so that one may choose the best there is for a particular task. Otherwise it would be like coding in assembly when there is no need for it! Besides, programming logic remains the same, no matter what language is used, the only difference, in my opinion, lies in the flexibility a language allows to a developer, and the availability of good and usefull library functions.