[Tutor] Introduction

[Ray Jones]

GUI? Moi? Hahaha....well....now that you mention it, I wonder....


Ray

On 08/18/2012 10:25 AM, Alan Gauld wrote:
> On 18/08/12 17:36, Ray wrote:
>
>> I'm not certain why I'm diving into Python. My only coding experience
>> has been using Bash scripts on my Ubuntu system for the past half dozen
>> years, and so far I'm not particularly convinced that Python has any
>> advantage FOR ME over what I have been using.
>
> Python may not give you any new capability for the kinds of things you
> describe but what you should find is that the code although maybe a
> smidge longer will be much easier to maintain. It will often run a
> little bit faster too (occasionally a lot faster) and use less
> computing resources.
>
> As with anything there will be a learning curve where it will feel a
> lot easier to just "knock something together is bash" but in time the
> Python approach will become more natural. Of course there will still
> be plenty of room for OS one liners. I still use bash and awk for
> short one-off jobs. But for things you do frequently Python is usually
> a better long term bet. And of course you can overlay a nice GUI to
> make those tools easier to use...
>
>> In my Bash scripts I make generous use of sed and grep, with the
>> occasional use of awk
>
> Remember that python can do all of those jobs natively, so resist the
> temptation to just use os.system() or the SubProcess module. Thee is a
> place for those, but its not to do what awk/sed etc can do - thats
> usually better kept within Python.
>
>> else would want...and although, as I look at my Python code so far, it's
>> definitely hard-coded for a Linux system :-p. So much for that
>> reasoning....
>
> We look forward to seeing some of it in the future when you ask
> questions. But bear in mind my comments about avoiding os.system() etc
> unless its the last resort.
>
> HTH,