will Python do me good?

[Mike Dean]

On 31 Jan 2003 16:03:26 -0800 samphdauto <samj at eisa.net.au> wrote:
> Hello every one.. Well, this is the first time I post here since I am
> thinking of learning Python...

Good choice!

> [description of project snipped]
> 
> So if I give it a list of websites. I will need to write the code to
> get specific info from that site or page. So it may need to drill down
> to get to the info. I am not sure if I am making enough sense to you.
> I hope I am.

Python is a very good language for this.  It has an HTML parser
(actually, two of them) in the standard library included with the
download, so drilling through a Web page is relatively easy.  I've
written a script once to scavenge links from a hand-coded link page into
a database, and it was relatively easy to write (aside from the issues
of nonconsistency of HTML tags, which you would have to deal with in any
language).  I'd recommend the HTMLParser in Python 2.2 though, rather
than the older htmllib in previous versions - it's a bit easier to
understand how it works (for me at least).  And as far as the database
access goes, there is a package for Python (win32all) that allows access
to COM objects, so you can access your Access db with DAO/Jet or ADO, in
a virtually identical way as you would in VB.

Combine those abilities with the cleanliness and sheer pleasure of
writing Python code, and it's definately worth seriously investigating
Python for your project.

Good luck!
-Michael