Not sure if this is a troll...I've seen several of these sorts of posts on the list. But it seems innocent enough, so I'll bite. :)
I'm not sure Delphi is really one of the "big 3"...surprisingly Java and C# don't make your list. > What is particularly disappointing is the absence of a Windows > IDE, components and an event driven paradigm. I've not tried any of the gui-builders that are out there. However, I understand that several exist. I'm just a contented vim junkie. As for the event-driven paradigm, you might want to investigate both the standard tkinter package, or the commonly used wxpython package (recently praised/reviewed/talked-up on Ron Stephen's Python411 podcast). Both have a main-loop processing method that gets called, and then feeds messages to your various objects via method-calls. > How does Python stand relative to the big 3, namely Visual > C++, Visual Basic and Delphi? Visual C++ minuses compared to Python ------------------------------------- Half a bajillion lines of code to do the most simple of things. Ability to shoot yourself in the foot with errant pointers. Limited standard libraries (without chaining yourself to one particular platform in general). Windows only for the most part (okay, other C++ compilers exist, but you explicitly mention VC++). Minimal ability to interactively inspect/effect your program. Requires a compile/link phase. Code is usually hard to read. Macros and templates make for a headache (or worse). Two files each for most productive stuff (your header & source) if not more (your .o object file, your .lib output file, your .idl interface file, your workspace file, your makefile, etc). Delphi compared to Python ------------------------- Delphi is nice. It still takes more code to do a given task than it does in Python. It's very B&D (none of this sissy "pseudo-type-checked" syntax of C/C++/Java where int-types are really just ints with Groucho-glasses...types are types in Delphi!), which can be good or bad according to your tastes. Still requires a compile/link phase, but not as long as C/C++ does. Somewhat more portable than VC++, as there's Kylix for Linux, but still not as universally available as Python. I can't malign it too badly as I have a soft spot in my heart for object-pascal. Visual Basic compared to Python ------------------------------- VB shares some interesting aspects with Python...namely it's much more readable than the other two. It's syntax is clunky at best, with goto's, and cobbled-on exception handling (at least in VB-Classic, as opposed to VB.Net with which I have no experience, thank goodness). It's good for hammering together a quick form and dropping some code behind it. However, it's not exactly portable to other platforms (though there is the Gambas project that offers VB-ish development on *nix platforms). It's not terribly object-oriented, so doing OO-related stuff is next to impossible. Functions aren't first-class objects, so you have to do some funky workarounds. I might be exaggerating regarding C++ and the half-a-bajillion lines...it may only be something like a quarter-of-a-bajillion lines. > I realize that these programming packages are quite expensive > now while Python is free (at least for the package I am using > - ActivePython). I had heard that VC++ and VB had free standalone stripped-down versions available for download. And Borland had a beginners' edition of Delphi available for free download at one point as well. All hearsay until proven otherwise, but that was my feable understanding. But I'm also gonna have to agree with Paddy, about the "better than all three". And the "knobs" bit. My $0.02 ramble... -tkc -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
