Paul Boddie wrote: > Ben Sizer wrote: > > > > In my case, multimedia and game support is patchy, > > There are lots of multimedia and game frameworks for Python. Which ones > have you tried and why are they insufficient?
PyGame was barely maintained for a year, and is based on SDL which was also barely maintained for a year, and which hasn't kept up with hardware advances at all. On the graphical side you can opt for OpenGL, the Python library for which is also barely maintained (though I hear work is underway behind the scenes) and doesn't provide much more than a minimal layer over the C interface anyway. DirectX support only appeared this year unless you used IronPython, and it doesn't seem very popular. Which other frameworks are you thinking of? I know of a variety of wrappers around individual libraries, and of wrappers around 3D engines such as Irrlicht and Ogre, but not much else. > Certainly, some Web frameworks have some element of Java flavouring, > but there's also considerable diversity at least at certain levels. Pretty much every Python web offering revolves around you having your own server with the luxury of running your own long-running processes on it. Great for business apps, not much use for the hobbyist or independent site. There are probably some hosts that will provide shared hosting for your Django or Turbogears app, but they are not exactly numerous. The barrier to entry here is much higher than with PHP or ASP, for example. And even with the full framework approach, the field has been so fragmented until recently that in terms of community support, you'd be better off opting for another language. I appreciate there's a diversity vs. standardisation argument there which may never be settled, so I accept this is just a personal opinion, but I do think a critical mass of users is important with any technology. I'm in a similar situation to the original poster; I'd like to use Turbogears for an app I want to write, but will probably end up doing it in PHP instead, because I can't get dedicated hardware or a local host for Turbogears. (Never mind the lack of documentation.) > Otherwise, no amount of complaining will put the > two technologies together. It's a fair point, but on the other hand, saying "if you want it doing, do it yourself" doesn't objectively improve the status quo. If something doesn't exist, it doesn't exist, and it's valid to comment upon that fact. -- Ben Sizer -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list