A few questions

[Basilisk96]

> 2.  Is there a good book to start with while learning Python?  I'm
> currently reading 'Python Essential Reference' by David M. Beazley.
> So far it looks like a pretty good book, but would like more
> tutorials to work with (I've also been reading through the tutorials
> at 'python.org' which has some excellent stuff!).

Take a walk through the text "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist":
http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/
It's medium-paced, well-organized, and - quite importantly IMHO -
builds well on knowledge acquired in the previous chapters as it
progresses. There are plenty of hands-on examples; and really, the
text was written by a high school teacher for a CS curriculum, so it's
structured more like a tutorial. I found it to be priceless when I
first got interested in Python, and I would highly recommend it to any
newbie, whether with previous programming experience or not, but who
has never laid eyes on Python before. As I think back on it, the book
gives you just enough information to make you hungry for more - and
indeed, after reading it I had enough insight to explore Python on my
own and started writing useful programs by myself.

>
> 3.  Currently, I write most of my code with Xcode (on the Mac
> platform) using Applescript.  This gives me GUI capabilities.  Is
> there anything you'd recommend that I could use for Python that would
> give me a GUI interface?  I'd like this to be able to work for both
> the Mac and Windows platforms.  I've been reading a little about
> 'Claro Graphics Toolkit' and 'PyGUI'... would you recommend either of
> those?  I'll be writing code on a Mac so I need something that will
> run on that system.
>

Try wxPython. I've seen it run on a Mac with OS X and Windows
simultaneously, where the operating systems were switched from one to
the other at the touch of a button, and the GUI had a very native look
in either platform (mind you, the app was running exactly the same
code in both cases!).
I write my code on a win32 box, so I have no further pointers for you
regarding a Mac.

-Basilisk96