Python

I hear that it's completely cross platform friendly.A writtenprogram will work on any microsoft,mac,linux operatingsystem.It's gained a lot of respect over the years and is completelyfree.It's perhaps the only true open source desk toplanguage as far as I can see.What's it like using it?

Edited December 31, 2008 by networker (see edit history)

Our experience with it won't necessarily be the same as yours. It has its own pros and cons like every other language. I haven't had any problems with it (that i couldn't fix or work around). It's about as easy to learn as PHP. One way to tell how easy a program is is by checking how big would a "Hello World" script would be. If you can pull it off in less than 3-5 lines, then it shouldn't be hard; even better if it can be done in one line. In Python, just make sure that the whitespace from the left margin is the same, and you should be fine. But concerning one of your statements, it's not necessarily true that a pure Python script will be completely platform independent, 'cause there are some Python definitions that only work on Unix-like systems, and probably some that only work on Windows—but i haven't checked concerning Windows.

So theres even python program syntax differences that have an effecton different operating systems?That's too bad.This one article I read made it sound like Python was ready made for anything.Oh well.It seemed to good to be true.I still plan on looking more into the language though.

So theres even python program syntax differences that have an effecton different operating systems?That's too bad.
This one article I read made it sound like Python was ready made for anything.
Oh well.It seemed to good to be true.
I still plan on looking more into the language though.

It's not the syntax that can be platform dependent but certain definitions. The Python documentation tells you which ones aren't supported on Windows and which ones aren't supported on Unix-like systems. The reason why some are platform dependent should be obvious, since these systems have their own way of doing things for certain tasks which are different from each other. And along side Python for desktop application development is Ruby and PHP, and others; but PHP still needs a bit more time to grow in this area.

Apparantly you can now write php desk top applcations,which is really wierd. It still sems very much in it's infancy.It also getsme wondwering what kind of database you'd use for desktop applications with php,or for that matter with Python. It wouldn't seem practical using mysql on a desktop. Microsoft access? That's not open source. Conflicting ideoligies so to speak,

Actually, a lot of programs use MySQL. A popular one is Amarok2. Amarok2 now requires MySQL—not sure why though. Qt, a GUI toolkit, has built-in support for many databases, MySQL being one of them. Many companies have desktop applications that require logging in to use the program, which they use a database to store the user information. Some have been known to use Oracle, others may use the other database programs out there. It's not odd for MySQL to be used with desktop applications.

honestly until I read this I had never heard of python other than the snake. Would love knowing more of it. Is it easy for the novice, and things like that?

Is it easy for the novice, and things like that?

The syntax is quite simple; it's simpler than PHP. If you know PHP, then you shouldn't have much trouble with Python. There are just a few things that are done differently: In Python, variables don't start with dollar signs; to call a member in an object, you don't use arrows (->), you use dots; whitespace is mostly required, with very few exceptions; Python doesn't do automatic typing, like changing an integer into a string; semicolons aren't required; etc. The Python documention is quite informative and gets straight to the point.