Is Python like VB?

[Harlin Seritt]

"Would Python meet our requirements? "

Yes and no. Because Python is a very high-level language and
dynamically typed it is easy to learn. Python doesn't make use of
pointers but you are able to write object-oriented code (as opposed to
just being object-friendly like Visual Basic is). You will find that on
its own you won't be able to do any Office macro scripting although
there are several packages that will give you added functionality like
access to Com+ objects (see win32 modules by Mark Hammond). Now, this
may require more work than using VBA but it *is* doable. The com
portion of the win32 modules can enable one to create even a
macro-language unto itself!

Python is very powerful. There are many 3rd party modules and
frameworks (Zope, CherryPy). Also, there are many GUI toolkits
available for it (wxWindows, GTK, QT, Tk and on and on) and you can
also use it as a wrapper to write and compile to Java bytecode (see
Jython). The problem for you, however, is it may or may *not* meet
every requirement. For that you'll have to find out for yourself. I
suggest downloading Python and giving the Python tutorial a whirl and
then taking a look at other Python-related stuff:

[For programmers:]     http://docs.python.org/tut/tut.html
[For non-programmers:] http://honors.montana.edu/~jjc/easytut/easytut/
[Win32 stuff:]         http://starship.python.net/crew/mhammond/
[Tk 'Tkinter':]
http://www.pythonware.com/library/tkinter/introduction/
[wxPython:]            http://www.wxpython.org/
[PyGTK:]               http://www.pygtk.org/

Purusing these links will give you a very good idea of whether Python
is right for you. Naturally we'd all like to say 'YES Python is good
for you!' but you have to investigate for yourself.

Good luck!

Harlin Seritt