Beginner's questions

[Ken Seehof]

From: "Lad" <printers at sendme.cz>

> Hi,
> I am a Perl programmer but I miss some things in Perl. For this 
> reason I am looking for another, better (if any) programming 
> language. Maybe Python would be my choice. Can you please 
> answer the following?

Yes.

> 1.How well threads are implemented in Python particularly under 
> windows?

Threads work fine.  There is a global interpreter lock that prevents
the python code interpretation from truly running in parallel (but
library/extension code underneath is running in parallel, so this is
really no big deal and you do get some parallelism).

Threads are easy to use.

> 2.Are there any libraries for working with HTTP protocols that is 
> modules that could help download( grab) web pages with GET 
> methods and modules for using  also POST method without 
> necessity to program these applications with sockets?

Yes.  The httplib does what you want.  In fact you can go higher level
than that by using the urllib module, which will open any url as if it
were a file.

> 3.Are there any libraries for SMTP, POP3 and NNTP protocols?

yes, yes, yes... see the modules list

> 4. Is there a program for making executable files from python 
> programs?

Yes.  A few.  The one I use is Installer.
http://starship.python.net/crew/gmcm/distribute.html

> 5. What modules , except Tk, can I use for GUI programming with 
> Python?

Several.  I like wxPython the best.  It's a seamless wrapper on the
wxWindows GUI:   www.wxpython.org

> 6. Is it possible, in Python, send output from a program to a web 
> browser directly or in other words display html file in python 
> application?

Yes.  Most of the various python GUIs have widgets for that
In wxPython there is a wxHtmlWindow and a whole suite of support
objects.

> 7. Where can I find a available modules list?

http://www.python.org/doc/

> 8. What are best tutorials/books on Python?

http://www.amk.ca/bookstore/

> 9. Can you give me  examples of large Python application?

www.zope.org
http://www.python.org/psa/Users.html

> 10. Why do YOU use Python?

It's really that good.  My first mindblowing experience was using
Mark Hammonds win32ui and PythonWin.  Not just because
of the module itself, but because it proves that MFC can be
seamlessly wrapped in python!  If something as nasty as MFC can
be wrapped, anything can.  (Now I use wxPython instead of win32ui,
because it is similar to MFC, but way cleaner, and it is multi-platform.)

> 11. Is it possible to to "talk" to java applets via Python?

Yes.  There are several protocols that both languages support.

You can also make and use java classes in Jython.
http://www.jython.org/


> Thank you for your answers?
> 
> Ladislav

You're welcome.

All this info and more is available at www.python.org, where you
should spend the next few hours.  And download python.  It's really
easy to download and get started.

- Ken Seehof
kseehof at neuralintegrator.com
www.neuralintegrator.com/kseehof