Trying to choose between python and java

2007-05-14 Thread Anthony Irwin
Hi All,

I am currently trying to decide between using python or java and have 
a few quick questions about python that you may be able to help with.

#1 Does python have something like javas .jar packages. A jar file 
contains all the program files and you can execute the program with 
java -jar program.jar

I am sort of hoping python has something like this because I feel it 
makes it easier to distribute between platforms e.g. linux, mac 
windows etc.

#2 What database do people recommend for using with python that is 
easy to distribute across linux, mac, windows.

#3 Is there any equivalent to jfreechart and jfreereport 
(http://www.jfree.org for details) in python.

#4 If I write a program a test it with python-wxgtk2.6 under linux are 
the program windows likely to look right under windows and mac?

#5 someone said that they used to use python but stopped because the 
language changed or made stuff depreciated (I can fully remember 
which) and old code stopped working. Is code written today likely to 
still work in 5+ years or do they depreciate stuff and you have to update?

Anyway hopefully someone can help me out with these last few questions 
I have.

Also does anyone else have any useful comments about python vs java 
without starting a flame war.


-- 
Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin

http://www.irwinresources.com
http://www.makehomebusiness.com
email: anthony at above domains, - www.
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Re: Trying to choose between python and java

2007-05-15 Thread Anthony Irwin
Hi All,

Thanks to all that replied.

I noticed that someone said that the way you used regular expressions 
changed at some point. That is probably what upset the person I was 
talking to about python they are a huge perl fan and use regular 
expressions heavily.

The reason for asking about the .jar type functionality was to try and 
make it easier to distribute the application as some people said. I 
run linux systems and if I want to give the app to a windows user then 
I don't really want to muck about trying to create a windows install 
for them as I don't personally have a copy of windows to do it with so 
I thought that just giving them one file and telling them to install 
the run time environment would make it easier.

I tend to use the shebang #!/usr/bin/env python in my scripts so far 
but I imagine that having that would not work on say windows. Or is 
there some kind of file extension association for people running 
windows instead of the shebang?

I saw on the python site a slide from 1999 that said that python was 
slower then java but faster to develop with is python still slower 
then java?

-- 
Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin

http://www.irwinresources.com
http://www.makehomebusiness.com
email: anthony at above domains, - www.
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Re: how do I count spaces at the beginning of a string?

2007-05-16 Thread Anthony Irwin
walterbyrd wrote:
> The strings start with whitespace, and have a '*' or an alphanumeric
> character. I need to know how many whitespace characters exist at the
> beginning of the string.
> 

Hi,

I am new to python and just really learning but this is what I came up 
with.

#!/usr/bin/env python

def main():
 s = "  abc def ghi"
 count = 0

 for i in s:
 if i == ' ':
 count += 1
 else:
 break

 print count

if __name__ == '__main__':
 main()

-- 
Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin

http://www.irwinresources.com
http://www.makehomebusiness.com
email: anthony at above domains, - www.
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Re: how do I count spaces at the beginning of a string?

2007-05-16 Thread Anthony Irwin
Anthony Irwin wrote:
> walterbyrd wrote:
>> The strings start with whitespace, and have a '*' or an alphanumeric
>> character. I need to know how many whitespace characters exist at the
>> beginning of the string.
>>
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am new to python and just really learning but this is what I came up 
> with.
> 
> #!/usr/bin/env python
> 
> def main():
> s = "  abc def ghi"
> count = 0
> 
> for i in s:
> if i == ' ':
> count += 1
> else:
> break
> 
> print count
> 
> if __name__ == '__main__':
> main()
> 

Ahh even better would be to use some of the python library functions 
that I am still finding more about.

s = "  abc def ghi"
print (len(s) - len(s.lstrip()))

I am really starting to like python the more I use it.

-- 
Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin

http://www.irwinresources.com
http://www.makehomebusiness.com
email: anthony at above domains, - www.
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problem with import in python 2.2.3

2007-05-16 Thread Anthony Irwin
Hi,

I have written a python script that works perfectly in python 2.4.4 
and python 2.4.3 but when I try to use the same script on an older 
system with python 2.2.3 I get the following error.

./backup_all_mysql_databases.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "./backup_all_mysql_databases.py", line 5, in ?
 from datetime import date
ImportError: No module named datetime

Does anyone know why the datetime module is not being found in python 
2.2.3 and how I can make the script work in the older version of python?

-- 
Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin

http://www.irwinresources.com
http://www.makehomebusiness.com
email: anthony at above domains, - www.
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Re: problem with import in python 2.2.3

2007-05-17 Thread Anthony Irwin
Hi Guys,

Thanks for the replies I ended up rewriting my code to use the 
time.strftime() library but unfortunately the MySQLdb module I use 
needs python 2.3 or higher so it looks like I have to update python on 
the older system anyway.

-- 
Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin

http://www.irwinresources.com
http://www.makehomebusiness.com
email: anthony at above domains, - www.
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Re: omissions in python docs?

2007-05-17 Thread Anthony Irwin
7stud wrote:
> On May 17, 7:23 pm, 7stud <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> By the way, have the python doc keepers ever visited the php docs?  In
> my opinion, they are the best docs of any language I've encountered
> because users can add posts to any page in the docs to correct them or
> post code showing how to get around various idiosyncrasies when using
> the functions.
> 

Hi,

I also like the php docs and love that you can type any function into 
the search at php.net and the documentation just comes up and there is 
example code and then user comments also.

-- 
Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin

http://www.irwinresources.com
http://www.makehomebusiness.com
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Re: A few questions

2007-05-20 Thread Anthony Irwin
jay wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm totally new to Python and was hoping someone might be able to answer 
> a few questions for me:
> 
> 1.  What are your views about Python vs Perl?  Do you see one as better 
> than the other?

I have written some scripts in both perl and python and to me python 
feels more like a modern programming language then perl does.

As I am learning both languages I can also say that I was writing 
useful python code as I was learning python but had to do more reading 
with perl to write similar levels of code but maybe thats just me.

> 
> 3.  Currently, I write most of my code with Xcode (on the Mac platform) 
> using Applescript.  This gives me GUI capabilities.  Is there anything 
> you'd recommend that I could use for Python that would give me a GUI 
> interface?  I'd like this to be able to work for both the Mac and 
> Windows platforms.  I've been reading a little about 'Claro Graphics 
> Toolkit' and 'PyGUI'... would you recommend either of those?  I'll be 
> writing code on a Mac so I need something that will run on that system.

I have used wxpython and did the tutorial listed in their wiki and ran 
it on linux and mac and they looked like native applications in both 
and the same is meant to happen in windows but I don't have windows so 
have not tried it myself.

To do this on the mac I installed the universal python 2.4 from the 
python site and the wxpython mac install and just double clicked a 
python file with a .pyw and it executed like a normal app. Originally 
I had a .py file extension but that does not execute the python script.

-- 
Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin

http://www.irwinresources.com
http://www.makehomebusiness.com
email: anthony at above domains, - www.
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getting output from a command into a list to work with

2007-05-20 Thread Anthony Irwin
Hi All,

I would like to run the command below and have each line from the 
output stored as an element in a list.

find /some/path/ -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +10k -exec ls -1 '{}' \

The reason for this is so I can then work on each file in the 
following manner

var = command

for i in var:
 # do stuff to file code here

not sure the best way to get the output of the command so each line of 
output is one element in the list.

-- 
Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin

http://www.irwinresources.com
http://www.makehomebusiness.com
email: anthony at above domains, - www.
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Re: trouble with wxPython intro

2007-05-30 Thread Anthony Irwin
Daniel Gee wrote:
> I'm trying to learn WxPython with the tutorial:
> http://wiki.wxpython.org/Getting_Started
> 
> But I can't seem to get the example for events to work. I pasted the
> code they had directly into an interpreter and it got a dialog to
> appear and the program was able to close itself, but my own copy won't
> work. As far as I can see, it isn't at all different except for the
> name of the main frame, and so I differ to you for help.

--- code snipped 

>   #Menu setup
>   filemenu = wx.Menu()
>   filemenu.Append(wx.ID_ABOUT,"&About","Info about the program")

Hi,

make it the following instead.

filemenu.Append(ID_ABOUT,"&About","Info about the program")


>   filemenu.AppendSeparator()
>   filemenu.Append(wx.ID_EXIT,"E&xit","Terminate the program.")

And again make it the following.

filemenu.Append(ID_EXIT,"E&xit","Terminate the program.")

--- code snipped 


-- 
Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin

http://www.irwinresources.com
http://www.makehomebusiness.com
email: anthony at above domains, - www.
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Databases with python

2007-04-12 Thread Anthony Irwin
Hi All,

I am interested in playing with python some more and am looking at 
writing an app with data stored in a database. I have experience with 
mysql but thought that their may be other better databases that can be 
more easily distributed with the program does anyone have any 
suggestions here?

I only use linux myself but I can foresee some windows people wanting 
to use what I create and if I am going to support windows then I might 
as well support mac too. (this is to say that the database should 
support the 3 main platforms in use)

Also is wxpython the best cross platform gui library it seems to be 
the best I have seen so far.

-- 
Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin

http://www.irwinresources.com
email: anthony at the above domain, - www.
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