Giovanni Premuda wrote:

>Nando Dessena wrote:
>
>
>
>>Robert,
>>
>>RD> Maybe Python (www.python.org) could be a good choice.
>>
>>significant line feeds do not match my definition of "clarity of pascal",
>>sorry. ;-)
>>But let's not drag this one too much; every task has a language best
>>suited for it, and it's not always the same.
>>
>>Ciao
>>
>>
>>
>>
>And speed isn't really Python's strength. Though the net is full of
>benchmarks trying to prove the opposite, in my experience in computation
>intensive tasks Object Pascal and C++ are 20 to 300 times faster than
>Java or Python. Parsing a 1.48 MB text file building a memory intensive
>structure goes from a couple of minutes in Delphi to a couple of hours
>in Python. I guess the advantages of automatic memory management have
>their price...
>
>Ciao
>Giovanni
>
>
>

Minutes from Delphi to hours in Python isn't true.
Remember that all Python support routines are written in C or C++.
And yes, there are speed differences between native compiled languages
(Pascal, C++)
and bytecode compiled languares (Java, Python), but depending on your
needed data structures
you also could get faster with Python then native compiled languages.

Main difference is the development time needed.
In Python, you would be 5 to 10 times faster then with Pascal, C++.

But, don't start flames about that.
This was just my opinion.

Uwe