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Comment by actionfromafar | Hacker News Reader

After all, the motto is "there's more than one way to do it"!

Maybe it's just a joke, but for those that don't know that is Perl's motto and even better because there's the venerable, wonderful CPAN [0] which is the de facto package repository for the language.

[0] https://www.cpan.org/

It's certainly a joke, because the Python original motto was "there's only one way to do it", and the current one is "there's only one (obvious) way to do it".

The Python's motto was created as an obvious reference to the Perl's one, purposefully negating it.

Thank you for that context!

I hate when people reduce that line of the zen in that way; it's actually:

"There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it."

That is different from "there's only one way of doing it" in so many ways that it's not even funny.

The Python motto has always been satire.

It was a goal in the early 2000s. It has become satire.

Kinda. They basically say "Perl is such a bad language that I bet if I inverted every thing on it I'll make a great language".

So, not completely serious, but not just a joke either. Python isn't exactly a "reverse Perl" but it's close to it, and it's a really good language.

That is actually Perl's motto. [0]

[0] https://wiki.c2.com/?ThereIsMoreThanOneWayToDoIt

I think that’s the joke

But Perl started this whole one package manager to bind us thing with CPAN.

There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it. Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.

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