Python versus VB

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Simon Foster wrote:
> I am meeting with a potential client next week to
> discuss starting a new project.  His preference is for
> VB whereas I would prefer Python for obvious reasons ;-)
> 
> Could anybody come up with a short list of the pros and
> cons of the two languages (I am not terribly familiar
> with the strengths/weaknesses of VB).  This will be a
> general-purpose text-processing type application with no
> GUI required.

VB pro : easy for small gui developpement
VB cons : VB6 is dying, VB.NET is maybe not that stable, VB is not 
portable, VB as really weak support for text-processing (regexp, 
parsers, functional programming facilities etc).

Python con : it's not (now) a wide standard.
Python pros : it's really hi level, esay to write, read, maintain, well 
suited for text processing  :regexp, parsers, fp support, etc (see 
David's Mertz excellent "Text processing in Python" book). Also, Python 
has a good support for MS technos like COM etc.

You just can't compare the two languages, specially for a non-gui, 
text-processing oriented app.

My 2 cents...

-- 
Bruno
Somewhere in the (South) West of France