Considering migrating to Python from Visual Basic 6 for engineering applications

[wrong.address.1 at gmail.com]

torstai 18. helmikuuta 2016 17.21.32 UTC+2 Oscar Benjamin kirjoitti:
> On 18 February 2016 at 11:32, Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 10:11 PM,  <wrong.address.1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Almost everything points positively for Python. Thanks to all of you who have responded. But please also tell me the disadvantages of Python. If I start using Python, I should be aware of the price I am paying. Speed is not a big problem for me, so an interpreted language is fine. Is packaging/installing very messy? Do I create dozens of files for a simple program calculating the sum of two numbers and product of two numbers in text boxes with one command to be clicked? Can I learn this much in the first couple of hours?
> >>
> >
> > There are a few warts, particularly on Windows, as regards packaging
> > and third-party modules. Anything that's written in pure Python is
> > fairly easy; stuff that's written in C is sometimes a bit hairy. But
> > that's a limitation on the "extended library" of PyPI, not the stuff
> > that comes with Python itself.
> 
> For packaging/installing it really depends on what you're trying to
> do. You have to understand that Python is used in many very different
> ways in different environments and ecosystems so there just isn't a
> single way of doing it.
> 
> It sounds to me as if all of your needs can be solved in pure Python
> code possibly using some of the popular extension modules from PyPI.
> In this case it's actually very easy to package/install. You can
> package your code simply by zipping it up with a __main__.py file.
> Someone who wants to install it will simply have a two step process:
> first install Python (and possibly a few dependencies) and then obtain
> the zip file with your code in it.
> 
> --
> Oscar

This form of packing is not desirable. I can't ask other people to install Python on their machines, and I also would not want show most of the code doing the calculations.

Another question I have is regarding reading numerical data from text files. Is it necessary to read one character at a time, or can one read like in Fortran and Basic (something like Input #5, X1, X2, X3)?