Can Python replace Visual Basic? Should it?

[Brad Bollenbach]

[snip]

> If you are programming for purity in code, if OO is theoretical stuff for

Purity as in "clear, clean, concise code" should be the norm, not the
exception. If your production code is ugly, start refactoring (I do on a
daily basis). If you let it /stay/ ugly, don't pretend that it's not costing
you more money than putting the effort into doing things (almost) right the
first time.

> you consisting of inheritance, polymorphism and encapsulation, or if a

Theoretical stuff? The app that pays my bills, HEAVILY incorporates the
"theory" of all three of those fundamental OO principles. And, not as
importantly in "the industry" admittedly, OO is more fun to program in for
me (if it's not to you, good job, no flames on that please).

> really wonderful intuitiv IDE with far the best autocomplete and library

The autocomplete in VB IS truly sweet. Very, very, very sweet no doubt about
it. Unfortunately, this says NOTHING about the usefulness of a language.

> browsing features I have seen so far is just pain for you because you
prefer
> coding the GUI in plain text -> do not consider Visual Basic

I like coding in text editors or "light IDE's" such as PythonWin. For
specific reasons that I've already cited in another post, IDE's just seem to
get in my way (admittedly, this is much more true of my Powerbuilder
experiences than my VB ones, but the Powerbuilder app I work on is about
5-6x more complicated).

> Otherwise its a neat tool for the purposes mentioned.
>
> I did not do much COM stuff in Python right now, but I think you cannot
> compare it to Visual Basic at this time.
[snip]

You've hardly touched COM with Python, but "I think you cannot compare it to
Visual Basic at this time"? Let the reader decide whether they value such a
well-informed opinion. :)