Python versus VB

[George Kinney]

"Simon Foster" <simon at uggs.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3fa057e2.14061399 at news.dsl.pipex.com...
>
> I am meeting with a potential client next week to
> discuss starting a new project.  His preference is for
> VB whereas I would prefer Python for obvious reasons ;-)
>
> Could anybody come up with a short list of the pros and
> cons of the two languages (I am not terribly familiar
> with the strengths/weaknesses of VB).  This will be a
> general-purpose text-processing type application with no
> GUI required.

FWIW, I ditched VB in favor of Python precisely because I ran into
a lot test pre-processing that needed done.  VB was the clear loser
because:

It is expensive and non-portable, and has nil for functionality as shipped.
You're going to have to write your own modules and classes to get real work
done.
With Python,  the module library is huge and well rounded, and once you
write your code
you can deploy it to any box you feel like. (win32, linux, OS/400, etc.)

VB is fragile. You can break a working VB app just by applying MSs own
OS and Office updates. (Changes between development and target machine
can also cause it blow up.)  Python is self-contained, it doesn't interfere
with
the OS on any platform that it runs on AFAIK.

VB has classes and you can make COM objects and DLLs, but they are a pain in
the a**
to use compared to 'import something'.

At any rate, I deleted VB and tossed the install disks in the trash 2+ years
ago
and have never missed it at all.  VB sucks.