How do *you* use Python in non-GUI work?

[Michael Torrie]

sturlamolden wrote:
> Back in the 'old days' of Unix, programs tended not to be small, could
> only do one thing, and did it well. They had  no gui, and all
> interaction came from command line options. The programs were invoked
> from the command line, and input and output were piped from one
> program to another (input on stdin, output on stdout).

And of course Python is perfect in this area.  A great example is found
here:

> <snip>
> To answer your question: I only add GUIs when I have to. But because
> it seems that people are becoming computer illiterate, incapable of
> using a keyboard, and only comfortable with a certain point-and-click
> input device, it tends to be most of the time now.

Python is excellent for gluing together components with a GUI.  This
preserves the modularity, diversity, functionality, and the ability to
strings things together, but allows a nice easy way to interact with it.
 A great example is a GUI to drive ffmpeg or any number of transcoding
pipelines.  Command line switches are powerful but confusion, and well
beyond my memory.  Yet I prefer transcoders to work this way because I
can string them together in different ways.  Using wxPython or GTK or
PyQT is ideal for bringing these tools together in a useful way.  The
perfect example of how a GUI should function.