(slightly OT): Python and linux - very cool

[Peter Hansen]

TuxTrax wrote:
> 
> I said that it seems to just work better in Linux. I should have said,
> there are snags in windows that have to do with the way windows
> handles things. For instance, the line:
> 
> from nntplib import *
> 
> should make all of nntplib's methods available to the calling
> program. However, a known problem (for which there is a workaround -
> as is the way with windows) is that due to windows file system quirks,
> the libraries are not always in the same place, or with the same
> names. for instance, according to the docs, windows often will
> capitalize an 8.3 filename all on it's own, or not treat spaces
> correctly. The trolls will jump on this, but I trust the python docs
> more than I trust the word of trolls. And it is in line with my
> experiences.
> 
> Stuff just works better in Linux. What else can you say.

Nice post, and welcome to Python, but in this I think you leapt
to conclusions a little.  None of the above are actually common
issues in Windows with Python.  "from x import *" certainly works
properly, even though it's almost never a good idea (hint to newbies:
don't do that!).  Windows does sometimes capitalize filenames,
but it's actually Explorer (the GUI shell) which does that, not
the filesystem, so Python does not really suffer from it.  A
standard installation would run your code about as well as Linux.
(Yes, there are some issues, like the Windows TCP/IP stack is 
worse under Win98 than under Linux.  I just mean that the items
you point out above are not issues.)

I'm actually almost OS-agnostic as a result of using Python for
so much.  No small feat, that.

-Peter