Python for everything?

[Larry Bates]

Short answer is yes.

Longer answer: You will still need C for device drivers and other
applications that have high performance demands.  Calling C from
Python is quite easy.  Python can be used from short "shell" scripting
to projects that very large (see Zope, Plone, ReportLab, etc).  Other
than C, Python is the only language that I've been able to write
Windows Services (or *nix daemons), COM objects, GUI programs, text
programs, and headless programs (e.g. programs that produce no
console output).  I'm much more productive with Python.  By choosing
Python you commit to learning one language extremely well instead of
jumping all over with different languages that you can remember only
poorly.  When new version of Python ships, you just learn what is new.
If you try to keep up with C, C++, Visual Basic, ... it gets to be
impossible.

Hope information helps.

Larry Bates


xeys_00 at yahoo.com wrote:
> I posted a article earlier pertaining programming for my boss. Now I am
> gonna ask a question about programming for myself. I just finished my
> first C++ Class. Next semester is a class on encryption(and it's
> probably gonna be a math class too). And finally back in programming in
> the fall with C++ and Java 1. The C++ will cover pointers, and linked
> lists, sorting algorithms, etc... I run linux and OS X. I have read in
> the old days that C was used for everything. It was a systems
> programming language, and also did a lot of the same stuff Bash scripts
> and perl do now. So, in that era, C did it all, from short to tall. My
> question is, can Python "do it all"? I am wondering what to learn as my
> scripting language. I have read that perl is good up to about 250
> lines, and after that it gets kind of hairy. However, from what little
> I have heard about Python, it's very well suited for readability due to
> the whitespace requirements of the language, and very good for large
> projects due to it's large amount of modules and it's object oriented
> structure. I would like opinions as to the suitability of Python as a
> general purpose language for programming unix, everything from short
> scripts to muds. Thanks for your patience, opinions, and comments.
> 
> Xeys
>