Hi everyone, I'm a psychology PhD student at NUI Maynooth, and I've just started looking at Python. I have a little VB6 experience, and am working my way through Learn Python the Hard Way at the moment. I'll ramble for on a bit about where I'm coming from and if anyone makes it to the end and has any advice, that'd be great!
I have a pretty specific goal in mind, I'm looking to work my way up to programming a psychology experiment that presents participants with pairs of word or picture stimuli and record their key-press response times. We have a VB6 app that we use for this already (you can download a copy of it at IRAP 2012 Program update<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18453750/IRAP%202012%20update%20program.zip> if you were interested for some reason) but the code is a mess. It needs to be redone from the ground up and in something that we can a) deploy one multiple operating systems, and b) distribute as a single executable with no or minimal dependancies so that other researchers can pick it up and use it with little setup time. I asked around and was pointed towards Python. I've looked at packages like PsychoPy to make my job easier, but they don't give adequate control over randomisation, looping, or data output. I'm now considering using wxpython or Python Card (I was initially a little stumped as to how to create a GUI - shows my lack of knowledge!). So, my questions are as follows: 1. Am I making any obvious errors in thinking that Python + wxpython are a relatively easy way to do this, or am I looking to do something with Python that would be better done with another language or with another set of tools? 2. One colleague suggested I use a proprietary language called LiveCode, but others have suggested this would be a bad call as I'd be locked in to their system (and paying money I didn't have to). Thoughts? Thanks for reading! Best, Ian --
