Where is Python in the scheme of things?

[Thomas Jollans]

On Wed, 4 Oct 2006 16:21:21 -0400
"gord" <gord at no_spaming.com> wrote:

> [...] all in a DOS-like environment.
Python is an extremely multi-purpose language that is not dependant on GUIs or similiar riff-raff. It can be run in DOS or DOS-like systems, but that is your choice, not python's. Python has a traditional connection to the *nix (UNIX-like) family of operating systems, where the command like is a lot more powerful and used than in modern incarnations of DOS, such as Windows NT 5.1, nicknamed "windows xp".

> What is particularly disappointing is the absence of a Windows IDE, 
There are multiple. I personally chose to use the editor vim and the command line, but that is a personal choice. See <http://wiki.python.org/moin/IntegratedDevelopmentEnvironments>.

> components and an event driven paradigm.
I am not sure what you mean with "components". Since everything in python, even types and functions, is an object, events can be implemented cleanly and easily where they are due, such as in GUI toolkits.

> How does Python stand relative to the big 3, namely Visual C++, Visual Basic and Delphi?
No additional comment on "big 3". Visual C++ is just an IDE for the language C++, which has, like python, roots in the UNIX and command-line world. VB and Delphi are IDEs for extended versions of the languages BASIC and PASCAL, respectively. See the link above for IDEs for the language Python.

> I realize that these programming packages are quite expensive now while Python is free
> (at least for the package I am using - ActivePython).
Price and quality are not directly related; in this example I must say that some of the better (supposedly, I have not tried them) python IDEs are actually commercially distributed proprietary software. Also note that python is not only available free of charge, but also so-called "free software" (libre software... related to open source, which it also is), see the free software definition at <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html> for a description of that matter.
 
> Please discuss where Python shines.
Python shines nearly everywhere where speed and resource usage is not a killer factor. Writing and reading, this maintaining, software written in python is very easy. Python also lends itself very well to writing portable software. Being a (to the outside) interpreted language, the compilation step falls out, speeding up the development process somewhat.
I find the python language a lot clearer than (Visual) Basic, and programs are definately shorter. C/C++ aren't geared towards programmer-friendliness, so they are a completely different category. I know too little about Pascal (Delphi)
Python can be used in many areas, from small maitainence scripts on servers over web applications to fully-blows graphical apps. For graphical applications, there are multiple choices, one (Tkinter) being distributed with standard python (which does not act natively on any platform.) PyGTK has an excellent GUI designer, glade, and acts 100% natively on many UNIX/Linux systems, about 90% natively on windows systems, and doesn't, yet (AFAIK), integrate well with Mac OSX. WxPython acts natively everywhere, but is, as I have heard, not as "pythonic" as other frameworks. pyGUI looks promising.

Reinforcement: Remember that python is a language, not a development environment. It shines as a language, and can be put into a friendly case if the programmer choses that.

-- 
Thomas Jollans