Is python good for making database work short?

[Francois Lepoutre]

stevesusenet at yahoo.com (Steve) wrote in message news:<6f8cb8c9.0306181727.9c86095 at posting.google.com>...

>A coworker who is a foxpro nut did all of this in about 3 lines of
code.

>I was very impressed, and I plan to learn foxpro since the job has
>legacy apps written in it.

>However I was wondering if python could have made this job this easy.
>Does python make manipulating databases and data short work

We use both python and foxpro (the name of the current version it
currently is VFP8) and python for db matters. The vfp stuff is used
for win32 c/s interactions and python for web development (via
modpython).

I love both tools. They offers a similar feeling because of the superb
interpreter technology. Both have an enthusiastic user-community. But
one is a closed-source MS tool with very limited marketing clout. The
other one has its future upfront.

Foxpro "shines" at manipulating data in interactive mode because of
its local cursor engine. Nothing comes close in terms of ad hoc data
manipulation for "non repeatable routines" or complex stuff.

On the other hand, if you have to automate simple database tasks such
as cleaning data, a combination of python regex and mxodbc/mxdatetime
man be a great help.

The combination vfp+python easily beats perl+java in terms of
productivity. But it may not be an easy combo to sell...

Francois