Beginner's questions

[Gerhard Häring]

On 4 Aug 2001 14:02:36 -0700, Lad <printers at sendme.cz> wrote:
>Hi,
>I am a Perl programmer but I miss some things in Perl. For this 
>reason I am looking for another, better (if any) programming 
>language. Maybe Python would be my choice. Can you please 
>answer the following?
>1.How well threads are implemented in Python particularly under 
>windows?

Python's threads work just great. module threading in the Python standard
library

>2.Are there any libraries for working with HTTP protocols that is 
>modules that could help download( grab) web pages with GET 
>methods and modules for using  also POST method without 
>necessity to program these applications with sockets?

Yes, module httplib in the standard library

>3.Are there any libraries for SMTP, POP3 and NNTP protocols?

Modules smtplib, poplib, nntplib in the standard library. imaplib is also
there, should you need it.

>4. Is there a program for making executable files from python 
>programs?

Yes, several: py2exe and Gordon McMillan's installer.

>5. What modules , except Tk, can I use for GUI programming with 
>Python?

wxPython (wxWindows), pyQt (QT), pyGTK (GTK/GNOME), pyFLTK and others (native
win32 and MFC like are also possible)

>6. Is it possible, in Python, send output from a program to a web 
>browser directly or in other words display html file in python 
>application?

If you want to display a html file in a Python application, that means you must
use a web browser control in your application.  wxPython has a minimal html
rendering widget, and on win32 it can also embed ActiveX controls. The wxPython
demo on win32 has an example of embedding Internet Explorer.

>7. Where can I find a available modules list?

The standard library's module list is in the Python docs
(http://www.python.org/doc/current/)

Third party libraries can be found at The Vaults of Parnassus

    http://www.vex.net/parnassus/

and I can also recommend the relevant category at the Open Directory Project:

    http://dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Languages/Python/Modules/

>8. What are best tutorials/books on Python?

Others may answer this better than me. I have started with a very short Python
tutorial on IBM developerWorks, IIRC, then proceeded with the Python tutorial
from Guido van Rossum in the standard docs.

>9. Can you give me examples of large Python application?

Zope (http://www.zope.org) and Boa Constructor (a wxPython IDE) are two that I
know of.

>10. Why do YOU use Python?

It helps me doing little utility programs I need very quickly. It has the
philosophy of "batteries included". Almost everything I need is already in the
standard library. For most of the stuff that isn't, there are third-party
modules.

>11. Is it possible to to "talk" to java applets via Python?

Hmm. Yes, of course. But what's even cooler, you can even *develop* Java
applets in Python. There is an alternative Python implementation that targets
the Java Virtual Machine, it's called Jython. :-)

>Thank you for your answers?

You're welcome.

>Ladislav

Gerhard
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