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?
torstai 18. helmikuuta 2016 12.16.30 UTC+2 Chris Angelico kirjoitti: > On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 7:17 PM, <wrong.addres...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Thanks to all of you who have responded. One point two of you ask me is why > > I want to shift from Visual Basic. > > > > Most of my software is in VB6 (and VB3), and converting to VB.net is not > > very pleasant. I have learnt enough VB.net to manage most of the things I > > will need, but it always gives me a feeling that it is not meant for the > > kind of things I am doing. And you never know when Microsoft will kick us > > out of VB.net also. For the sake of keeping software compatible with new > > versions of Windows, you need to keep changing things in the software, > > which takes too much time. You might ask if it is really necessary to move > > from VB6 to VB.net because Microsoft will still not be able to kill VB6 > > very soon, thanks to VBA used in Excel. If my reasoning is wrong, please > > correct me. I am just an engineer, not a good programmer. > > > > Very fair point. And I fully support your move, here. Just make sure > you start on the latest Python (currently that's 3.5), and you should > have no difficulty moving forward in versions; as someone who started > writing Python 3 code back when 3.3 was the newest and latest thing, I > can attest that it's been easy to migrate 3.2->3.3->3.4->3.5->3.6; > there are very few things that get broken by the upgrade, and they're > mostly things that would have been bad code in the older version > anyway. > > >> The basic python language and its libraries are completely cross-platform > >> (Linux, OS-X, Windows, iOS, and Android). The same source code will run > >> on all of them. However, because it is an Interpreted language, the step > >> to a bundled, self-contained image is platform dependent. There python > >> compliers (as opposed to interpreters) for some, but not all platforms, > >> and there is a very active JiT compiler project that would fall somewhere > >> in between. > >> > > > > OK. This is clear to me now. It is like needing different Fortran compilers > > for different operating systems, but Fortran code does not need much > > modifications (except file names/paths, etc.). > > > > Something like that. There are a lot of little traps you can fall into > (as you say, file names can be different, especially system ones) that > stop your code from running correctly on all platforms, but porting a > Python script from Linux to Windows or vice versa is a matter of > testing it on the new platform and seeing what breaks, not completely > rewriting it in a new language. > > >> > Could someone kindly tell me advantages and disadvantages of Python? > >> > >> If you are completely satisfied with VB, there is no reason to change > >> (other than the enjoyable exercise of learning a new and more powerful > >> language). > >> > > > > Will VB6 run on Windows 11? Or can I compile VB6 on Windows 11. We can't > > know. But there will be easy ways to run Python on any Windows version or > > Linux or whatever. > > > > There will indeed. That's the advantage of a fully open system - even > if a nuclear meltdown kills all the Python core devs in one stroke (we > really shouldn't have had PyCon Chernobyl), anyone in the world can > pick up the source code and keep going with it. And Microsoft, despite > having a strongly anti-freedom history, has come far more on board of > recent years; as I understand it, Steve Dower has been spending > company time improving Python (notably in the area of Windows > installers and such). The future of open source software is pretty > secure, and the future of openly-developed languages even more so, > because CPython isn't the only way to run your Python code. > > One Python advantage that you may or may not be aware of is its > extensibility. To an extent that I haven't seen since working with > REXX on OS/2, there is a thriving community building Python packages, > many of which (about 75K!) are listed on PyPI [1]. Got this > proprietary database that you need to get info from? Check PyPI - > chances are someone's written a connector for it, so you can perform > queries on it as if it had native support in the language. Once you > install something using "pip" [2], you can import it into your script > the exact same way that you would import something from the standard > library - making PyPI kinda like the "extended library" for the > language. The barrier to entry is low, though, so you do sometimes > have to wade through a bunch of stagnant or expired projects to find > the gems you want. But there's so much good stuff there that it's well > worth the effort. > > ChrisA > > [1] https://pypi.python.org/pypi > [2] No, not the chipmunk from Enchanted. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
