Both are turing complete, so there's technically nothing one can do that the other can't, but some examples:
Suppose you want to generate prime numbers. In LiveCode you might write this algorithm: https://github.com/gcanyon/primelist Generating the primes up to 1,000,000 takes over 1.3 seconds on my M1 MacBook. In Python, using a less efficient algorithm, the same takes 0.3 seconds. Import the numpy library and use a more efficient algorithm like so: def prime6(upto=1000000): primes=arange(3,upto+1,2) isprime=ones((upto-1)//2,dtype=bool) for factor in primes[:int(sqrt(upto))//2]: if isprime[(factor-2)//2]: isprime[(factor*3-2)//2::factor]=0 return insert(primes[isprime],0,2) And you can get the same result in 0.002 seconds -- over 500 times faster. In LiveCode, if you want to handle large integer math, you write your own library, which takes a ton of time and work to optimize. I did this five years ago: https://github.com/gcanyon/bignum which enables this: on mouseUp repeat 1000 times put "1234567890" after x end repeat put the long seconds into T get bigTimes(x,x) put the long seconds - T into T put T && length(it) end mouseUp I worked hard to optimize that library, and I'm happy to say that runs in about 1.3 seconds. This runs in 0.0004 seconds: from time import perf_counter_ns from math import log10 n = 1234567890 for _ in range(999): n = n * 10**10 + 1234567890 start = perf_counter_ns() n2 = n*n end = perf_counter_ns() print((end - start)/10**9,log10(n2),n2%10**10) Python has numerous syntactic niceties. For example, if you want a function to return a fibonacci list, multiple assignments are nice: def fib(n): i = j = 1 R = [] for _ in range(n): R.append(i) i,j = j,i+j return(R) print(fib(5)) [1, 1, 2, 3, 5] And list comprehensions are wonderful. If you want a dictionary containing perfect squares for odd numbers: L = {i:i**2 for i in range(1,20) if i % 2 == 1} print(L) {1: 1, 3: 9, 5: 25, 7: 49, 9: 81, 11: 121, 13: 169, 15: 225, 17: 289, 19: 361} Obviously you could do that with a "step", but the if can be more complex than that. So reasons you might use Python include: 1. Efficient and convenient syntax 2. Speed 3. Access to vast libraries of code. gc On Fri, Jul 21, 2023 at 7:10 PM Bob Sneidar via use-livecode < use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote: > Out of curiosity, what can be done in in Python that cannot be done in LC > Script? > > Sent from my iPhone > > > On Jul 21, 2023, at 18:37, Alan Stenhouse via use-livecode < > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote: > > > > Hi Geoff > > > > Sorry for not replying earlier but looks like you've got it sorted. I > did a bit on this years ago and am contemplating it again. Just looked for > my old stack and see this script for running a python script and putting > the output into the "output" fld: > > > > > > on runPythonScript pScript > > put the tempname &".py" into tFile > > put pScript into URL ("binfile:" & tFile) > > put shell("<path_to_python>" && tFile) into fld "output" > > end runPythonScript > > > > Was starting to provide an interface for experiment parameters for the > scripts I was running (for some Turi ML classifications) but the project > paused... > > > > cheers > > Alan > > _______________________________________________ > > use-livecode mailing list > > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your > subscription preferences: > > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your > subscription preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode > _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode