[Bokverket] | The tasks on [Tim's] list that he has done/helped out with | lately are to a large extent useful jobs that an ordinary | user would love. Well, at least one who know how to program, | iow use Python as _the_ scripting language to glue all these | Micrsoft parts and apps together.
| This would require a wonderful Python-ish API on how to | access for example Outlook Express address lists, Word | and the file system. Plus some wonderful examples of | useful examples and how to execute them in a Window | environment.. | IOW, making Python for Windows what AWK was for DOS :-) | | Does this library already exist, easy-to-use? [warning: bit of a ramble] I suppose the short answer to this is: no. Not least because the remit of any such library would be huge: Word, Outlook, Excel, Active Directory, WMI plus all sorts of file system and network bits and pieces. You'd probably spend months trying to formulate a unified API of some sort, only to discover that you'd re-implemented COM! That's not to dismiss your notion at all, just to give some kind of feeling of the enormity of the task. What complicates matters more (and I'm only brushing over the surface here) is the fact that several things are achievable via several different routes. WMI, for example, offers a consistent wrapper over a number of sys-adminy things but underneath it's calling the Win32 APIs. The advantage of using the WMI approach is that if you're using it for other things it's just more of the same. The disadvantage is that it's generally a bit slower and may not offer all the control which the direct API offers. Another issue I've found with several (abortive) modules to wrap CDO, NTFS Security, Active Directory etc. is that you find yourself reinventing the Microsoft API with no real benefit. Also, inevitably, the time taken to do it is always more than one first thought. Of course one answer here is: document rather than implement. ie rather than create some easy-to-use all-embracing Windows package, create some useful repository of Win32 admin code. This would also be great but again requires much more dedication of time than you might suppose. Existing possibilities include: + the Python Cookbook which contains a Win32 section + the (apparently defunct) win32com.de site + The effbot's faq win32 section + my own all-too-small set of how-tos + The archives of the Python, Python-win32 and Python-tutor lists + Loads of people's personal sites / blogs etc. Given the effort, one might use the python.org wiki to centralise things, but ISTM that this requires much more input of time than perhaps one realises. Certainly my heart's in it but realistically I know time is against me. My bread-and-butter comes from SQL development and while I try to use Python as much as I can, I'd be doing my employer a disservice if I were to spend more time on Python-related things that didn't benefit my company. What perhaps people don't realise is just how easy it is to code up a Python solution pretty much from scratch. Not infrequently when I answer a Win32 question on the mailing lists, I don't know the answer to start with. I just Google for the obvious terms and go from there. I do have the advantage of having been a professional programmer for 16 years, including 10 years of programming under Windows and sometimes in Windows, and 7 years of using Python. But I'm no rocket scientist, and a lot of the time the question isn't "How can I do this in Python?" but rather "How can I do this?" and the jump to Python is nearly trivial. There was a recent thread on python-dev in which GvR was surprised at the (large) number of .msi downloads from Python.org, indicating how popular Python might be among Windoweers. My personal quest is to encourage that popularity by answering as many Win32-related Python questions as I can and if I can generate (and maintain) useful and more Pythonic modules to support that, then I will. TJG ________________________________________________________________________ This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The service is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit: http://www.star.net.uk ________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-win32 mailing list Python-win32@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-win32
