Python vs .Net

[Dave Brueck]

On Sun, 5 Jan 2003, Greg Brunet wrote:

> I've been checking out Python for a month or so after using VB for many
> years, and having just completed a 4 month VB.NET project.  Here's a few
> observations that I have:

[snip static typing stuff]

> - In order to write similar programs to VB6/.NET, I've been looking at
> wxPython for the GUI, and wxGlade, PythonCard, and Boa Constructor as
> editors / GUI designers.

Side note: there are other approaches too. For example, some people use
Delphi for building the GUI and do the rest of the program in Python.

[snip more GUI building stuff]
[snip more GUI stuff - data bound controls]
[snip more GUI stuff - robust set of controls]

In talking to VB developers I sometimes get the feeling that they believe
all or nearly all programs have a GUI. Is that just a misconception of
mine or is it generally true? Does the same also apply to .Net developers?
To be honest, very few of my programs have a GUI, and even in the ones
that do have a GUI the real "meat" of the program is rarely the GUI
anyway. Of course it is important to be able to build programs rapidly,
but in determining which tool (language) to use, I generally tend to
weight GUI-building capabilities below, say, code maintainability (yes
there are exceptions, but this current discussion is about generalities).

[snip ADO.NET stuff]

> - It may be that I am too far gone to be able to 'think Pythonically',
> but, at least at this time, it still seems to be quite a bit easier to
> develop a database app in VB6 or .NET than in Python.

Do you really mean "a database app with a GUI" or "any database app"?
Again, relatively few of the database applications (as in, applications
that access a database for something) I've ever done had GUIs, with the
exception of web-based stuff where the GUI was via HTML. And those that
did have GUIs usually presented the data in a way that didn't map all that
directly to the database structure. IOW, the greater divergence of the
presentation from the database schema, the less useful DB-linked controls
become (to me at least).

>  I'll still be investigating Python, and may even be able to contribute
> a few tools some day, but for now, I expect the apps the I write to pay
> the bills will continue to be written in VB6 or .NET (or ASP/VBScript).

Best of luck!

-Dave