Python vs .Net

[David Bolen]

"Greg Brunet" <gbrunet at nospamsempersoft.com> writes:

> 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:

I suppose it's only marginally on track for a Python group, but with
your recent VB -> VB.NET experience, I wonder if you could answer a
question of mine, not having dug deeply into VB.NET yet ...

Does VB.NET make it any easier to separate the logic design of the
application from the GUI layout, or is it further hard-linking the
two, such that you really end up with a bunch of controls with
attached code rather than a coherent application design with a GUI
layer?

I know that you can manually manage your classes (keeping them
distinct from the GUI layout, or implementing everything as COM
objects) in VB to try to control the situation, but it's not the
"normal" design method I've seen developers using.  From your comments
with respect to the strong push for data linked controls, it would
seem like VB.NET is actually going further in the direction I'm not a
big fan of.

That's one of the things I tend to prefer about something like a
Python + wxPython solution (ob. Python reference).  I tend to design
an application sans-GUI, and then implement the GUI as a layer above
the business logic.  This to me improves maintainability of the core
application, as well as making it accessible in non-GUI situations or
in replacement GUI (e.g., web side scripting) environments without any
significant changes - just use the core application interface without
the GUI.  Although true, I agree that none of the current layout tools
for Python quite approach the simplicity and robustness of the VB
environments, which is important when you do get to the GUI layout
stages.

I've always found VB to be an extremely friendly and easy RAD, but
that more often than not, resulted in applications where everything
was tightly linked to the GUI layout - so much so that managing a
structured design for the application logic itself suffered, as did
it's long term maintainability.  I was hoping that perhaps VB.NET
would improve things in that direction, but it sounds like it makes
you work just as hard to keep the GUI isolated from the bulk of the
application logic structure.

--
-- David
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