(the following was posted to the rec humor funny usenet newsgroup by larry hastingsand it is reprinted here with the original author' permission this has been percolating in the back of my mind for while it' scene from the empire strikes backreinterpreted to serve valuable moral lesson for aspiring programmers exteriordagobah--day with yoda strapped to his backluke climbs up one of the many thick vines that grow in the swamp until he reaches the dagobah statistics lab panting heavilyhe continues his exercises--greppinginstalling new packageslogging in as rootand writing replacements for two-year-old shell scripts in python yodacodeyes programmer' strength flows from code maintainability but beware of perl terse syntax more than one way to do it default variables the dark side of code maintainability are they easily they flowquick to join you when code you write if once you start down the dark pathforever will it dominate your destinyconsume you it will lukeis perl better than pythonyodano no no quickereasiermore seductive lukebut how will know why python is better than perlyodayou will know when your code you try to read six months from now conclusionpython and the development cycle