Python vs Visual Basic

[Robert Brewer]

> I want to create a program that will ask a user a series of questions
> and then generate a Microsoft Word document whose content is dictated
> by the answers.  I am not a professional programmer, and I understand
> only a little about OO programming.  Should I
> 
> a) stick to -- *gasp* -- Visual Basic to accomplish my goal;
> 
> b) use Python, with which I am somewhat familiar, and which I would
> prefer to use; or
> 
> c) find another hobby because I am only going to end up hurting
> myself?

I'm torn between a) and c). On the one hand, I like most people, and my
kind, caring side wants to recommend c): that you run away screaming
from Word-document generation. Literally: scream loud and long. It's the
only way management will get the message.

But then I realize that, if non-programmers like yourself don't take on
tasks like this, then one of the highly-trained master craftsmen on this
list will probably end up doing it. They'll get paid, of course, but
Office automation is bottom-of-the-barrel in wage terms, while somehow
being a slightly worse torture than struggling through the Malebolge in
one's lead-lined cloak. So I might recommend doing it all in VBA within
Word. I hear that overwrought, overdesigned, over-featured mass has some
sort of Forms functionality.

Hmm. Tough choice.


Robert Brewer
MIS
Amor Ministries
fumanchu at amor.org