Python and Java Compared?

[Dave Brueck]

[Assuming this isn't a troll]

"Dry Ice" <nomail at nomail.com> wrote in message news:3ac6f744_1 at news4.newsfeeds.com...
> First, I'd most like to hear from those
> who have some balanced experience at BOTH,
> as opposed to 'fans' of one or the other who
> have only dabbled in a secondary effort.
> 
> I would like to select one development environment
> to manage everything in a cluster-server project,
> from accounting-database to server CGI to distributed
> computing jobs.
> 
> Platform: Linux, and a few Windows machines- at
> least at the beginning.
> 
> If you had to choose...

I did choose, and I chose Python. Java has the worst of compiled and interpreted languages - you have to go through the compile step, but it's still slow. Java liked to hype up "Write Once, Run Anywhere", but with Python it actually works. Development in Python is faster, maintenance costs are lower, and fancier stuff like interfacing with a C/C++ library makes JNI look embarrassingly convoluted. Swing is too slow to be useful, and Java GUIs in general are pretty clumsy and look like toys. Python, however, doesn't blush when you ask it to work with other languages/libraries, so Python GUI apps use wxPython, PyGTK, etc and look and act slick, fast, and professional.

I used Java for several years and then learned Python, after which I wrote only ONE Java program. Writing it convinced me that I could never go back to Java again. With very little tradeoff, programming in Python lets you focus on all the fun stuff while ignoring the tiring and tedious work.

-Dave

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