[Glastonbury] Python [WAS: Another company recognizes Liux is HERE!]

[Sean Miller]

> I probably will, but am concerned that the huge set of
> beginners notes seems to tell me almost nothing!
> Checking syntax with .,;[]{} etc is bad enough, but
> counting spaces has gotta be a pain?

I would run a mile at any language that requires certain column rules to
be conformed to in order to parse... COBOL for example, eek.

>> It is IMHO far and away the most user-friendly
>> programming language - and a

On what basis is this statement being made? Define "user friendly"....

> GUI for Python?  Do you mean Python cannot produce GUI
> without some add on, or are you referring to GUI
> design tools to help write Pythion code?  Or maybe
> this is something else?

I think a decent GUI IDE is what is being lamented, not Python's ability
to produce GUI code, though not having ever delved into Python I could not
say for sure....

Personally I find IDE's handy in terms of learning curves, but I'd rather
get my hands dirty.

> I've never had the time/brains to get to grip with
> C++, although Clipper/xBase++ are said to have some
> very C-like syntax.

A lot of languages now have a very c-like syntax, including Micro$oft's c#
and j# for the .net framework. Also, php is very c-like in terms of
syntax, especially concerning conditional logic, and Java even more so...

If you know 'c' then php, java et. al are far far easier to get to grips
with...

> Is Java REALLY OO?  I don't think it is fully, unlike
> xBase++!

I have always considered Java to be fully OO. On what basis are you
questioning its claim to be object orientated?

> Learning Basic [Commodore 64, BBC] was a real pain,
> and I wish I'd had an OO language back then, OO is
> soooo much more sensible!

BBC basic was great in that it offered the chance of structured
programming (DEFFN, DEFPROC etc. etc.) and discouraged GOTOs and GOSUBs
with their dependence on line numbers. Commodore and Sinclair BASIC??
Worthless waste of effort, imho.

> or one language for EVERYTHING.  This might be VB's
> aimed-at strength, with VB for applications [Word
> etc].  I remmber delving into VB for a simple
> 'announce failed transactions by email' accounting
> reauirement.  I found 6 ways to do that, of which 5
> failed due to bugs and 1 required a bought-in module
> [which worked!].

No, VB was never intended to be "one language for everything"... it is
very much a client/server language, with ODBC/OLE tacked on to allow
communication between products that support such things.

Java is far more "one language for anything"... you can write
client/server java, browser deployed java, GUI java.... the joy of Java,
of course, is the virtual machine. At the next LUG (or the one after) I
shall demonstate JEXT running on both Windows and SuSE Linux... the same
executable. Well sound...

.NET has taken the virtual machine concept and turned it upside down. The
concept with .NET is that you can write your code in one of many different
languages and it will then convert it into .NET virtual machine code. So,
if you like C you can use C#, if you like Java you can use J#, if you like
VB you can use VB.NET etc. and the end result will be exactly the same....

..shame they screwed up the sound idea by making it all dependent on a
Micro$oft platform, though there are folks currently building an open
source .NET which is looking very good indeed.

>>but alas, that does
>> not seem to be the way of it. At some future point I
>> will probably want to
>> teach my son programming and I'm wondering what
>> language to start him off on
>> - probably Python unless anyone has any better
>> suggestions.

I would start him off on Java.... syntactically it is very simple indeed,
and it is used in the "real world" for all sorts of applications (both web
and non-web). Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the city bank, uses Java for
its front-end trading systems (client/server using Java Swing GUI
components), and very impressive it is too... learning it will serve him
well in the future.

> I've still no real idea what Python can and cannot do.
>  PHP is still a mystery to me, and I'm going in loops
> trying to make sense of Perl.  XBase++ and the WAA
> [Web Application something which comes with it] is in
> theory able to do any system anybody could want, the
> WAA bit making it work over the internet.  Despite
> this I've no idea how WAA works, even though I got a
> copy with my xBase++!

Forget Perl, it's the spawn of Satan. Php is like Perl, but at a higher
level. For example, you can access databases really really simply in php
without having to worry about the "nuts and bolts".

Demo in August or September GLUG.

> Maybe I just need to know too much how/why something
> works, rather than just trusting it will.  Although in
> my experiance such trust is often misplaced.

Always good to know how it works, in case it doesn't!

Sean