Python???//

[Alex Martelli]

"Grant Edwards" <grante at visi.com> wrote in message
news:slrn9ggr5o.tl.grante at tuxtop.visi.com...
> On 20 May 2001 17:24:02 -0700, Aahz Maruch <aahz at panix.com> wrote:
>
> >>Hey is python mainly meant for nix based operating systems?
> >
> >No.  Python was originally developed on a Mac, and it excellent Windows
> >support.
>
> If it weren't for Python I doubt that I'd be patient enough to
> do any Win32 programming at all, and I'd certainly never get
> any COM stuff to work!  Using Python, even those of us who've
> been using Unix since PDP-11 days can make a MS-Windows machine
> do something a little bit useful.  The mind boggles at what
> somebody who understands Win32 and COM could accomplish using
> Python.

I discovered Python pretty late, when I was already quite versant
in Win32 and COM (http://aleax.supereva.it/TutWin32/index.htm is
a tutorial on Win32 C API programming in Italian which I started,
for example; though I left it incomplete at just 46 chapters, as
I had gotten more interested in Python, it's still been of some
use to Italian programmers needing to wrestle with Win32 APIs:-).

I'm not sure any boggling of the mind is actually warranted:-), but
I can confirm that Python has easily become my main language for
Windows work, including much Win32 API stuff and most COM.  I only
"lapse" back to C++ (writing in C is a choice I only make with much
soul-searching when didactical or community-acceptance needs really
leave me no choice -- C++ *is* still the language I use when I
talk in my sleep...:-) when I need speed, ease of redistribution
of small components to machines without a Python installation, or
access to one of the very few non-COM API's that win32all doesn't
yet cover...


Alex