Trying to choose between python and java

[Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch]

In <f2bghg$4q0$1 at news-01.bur.connect.com.au>, Anthony Irwin wrote:

> #1 Does python have something like javas .jar packages. A jar file 
> contains all the program files and you can execute the program with 
> java -jar program.jar

There are .egg files but usually distributing a program consisting of
several files isn't a big problem.  There is a mechanism to write a
`setup.py` that copies the files into the correct locations.  Look for
`distutils` in the library docs.

> #2 What database do people recommend for using with python that is 
> easy to distribute across linux, mac, windows.

>From Python 2.5 the standard library contains SQLite support.  There are
third party libraries to many DBMSs like MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle etc.

The situation with MySQL bindings under Windows was a bit troublesome
recently.  The author of the bindings doesn't use Windows and does not
provide pre-built binaries.

> #4 If I write a program a test it with python-wxgtk2.6 under linux are 
> the program windows likely to look right under windows and mac?

Likely yes, but you better check.  Same applies to Java GUIs.

> #5 someone said that they used to use python but stopped because the 
> language changed or made stuff depreciated (I can fully remember 
> which) and old code stopped working. Is code written today likely to 
> still work in 5+ years or do they depreciate stuff and you have to update?

That sounds odd because the language and standard library is very
backwards compatible.  There are some things deprecated with a comment in
the docs and in some cases runtime warnings, but the code still works.

With Python 3.0 some things will break, because there's some cruft in the
language and library that accumulated over time, just because backwards
compatibility was such a high priority.  The 2.x series will be supported
for some time parallel to 3.x, so there is enough time to migrate.

Ciao,
	Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch