Python as alternative to Visual Basic

[Graeme Matthew]

As an ex VB developer who jumped to Python, I can say that you do not need 
to worry about its worability on windows. If youre using Access / excel etc 
then Pythonon has a com library so even ADO connections are fine. To connect 
to SQL etc simply use the Win32 ODBC package found in the Python Win32All 
installation.

In terms of GUI's there is wxWindows which is cross platform and Tkinter 
which is proven on both platforms. I have not investigated this one yet but 
there is also Mono the open source .NET standard this in theory would should 
allow you to call the .NET Framework and use its objects / libraries

I would say and this is my biggest concern is what is Microsoft up to in the 
next few years and where is .NET going?
"Aaron Ginn" <aaron.ginn at freescale.com> wrote in message 
news:cin0d0$ani$1 at avnika.corp.mot.com...
> I'm investigating the feasibility of using Python instead of Visual Basic 
> for a commercial software package that I'm planning on developing. Now I'm 
> absolutely a Python zealot.  I use it for most of my software development 
> at work where I work in a Solaris environment.  To me, Python is the 
> perfect language for most applications in a UNIX environment where a 
> compiled language is not required.  However, I'm not so sure about 
> Windows.
>
> The software package I'm developing will make calls to Excel and Access 
> and requires a very usable GUI for users who are not particularly computer 
> literate.  My first question is: what is the best choice for a GUI toolkit 
> on Windows?  I've used Tkinter for UNIX to some degree of success, but I'm 
> not sure this is the best choice for Windows.  Second, if I choose to make 
> the application cross-platform (Windows and Mac OS X in particular), what 
> would be the best choice for a cross-platform GUI toolkit?  I was thinking 
> of looking at PyQt.  Is there a better option?
>
> Basically, I'm trying to make a case for Python to the other developers of 
> this software package as I believe it offers numerous advantages over VB 
> in terms of speed of development, a quick learning curve, and 
> maintainability.  Can anyone help me make that case?
>
> Thanks,
> Aaron