Is Python like VB?

[James]

Mike Cox wrote:
> As you may or may not know, Microsoft is discontinuing Visual Basic
in favor
> of VB.NET and that means I need to find a new easy programming
language.  I
> heard that Python is an interpreted language similar to VB.

VB is not interpreted. Sure! You can compile it to P-Code if you want
to but most people compile to machine code (like C, C++, Assembler).
You are confusing between static linking in C++ etc and mandatory
dynamic linking with VB runtimes with interpreted languages. VB needs
runtimes but is not interpreted generally.

Python is NOT similar to VB. It is much better as a language. VB is
optimized to what you are doing currently. Python is a more general
purpose language.

> This means that
> it doesn't have all the hard stuff like pointers, classes and
templates like
> C, C++ and assembly language.

Python has classes.
C and Assembly do not have classes and templates.
If I remember correctly, VB could have pointers too (Address
function?).

> Where I work we use  Microsoft Office with a lot of customization
using
> Visual Basic.  I would like to switch to Python to do it since VB is
being
> discontinued.  Would Python meet our requirements? I need to make
lots of
> GUI applications (message boxes, forms, etc.) and do the underlying
business
> logic too.

You will probably find migrating to VB.NET easier than to Python if you
have to do WYSIWYG data bound form design.

VB.NET is quite a nice language (I personally prefer C#). Much nicer
than VB6. Python is better but it may not meet YOUR needs
infrastructure wise.