Boss wants me to program

[Ron Adam]

Ok, sorry to throw perhaps unrelated stuff in here, but I want everyone
to know what we have right now in the office. We started with an
electric typewriter and file cabinets. We were given an old 386 with a
20 mb hard drive about 5 years ago, and we moved everything over to a
very very old version of msworks on msdos 6. Depending on what we are
given(for reasons best left alone, I won't explain why we can't
actually COUNT on the actual buying of a new system), we will be left
with this relic, or be given a 486. Maybe a old pentium 90 or so. I may
try to convince the boss that I can write dos programs for the existing
machine. If we get any kind of upgrade, I'm sure it will be able to run
linux with X and a low overhead window manager. If that happened, I'd
be able to use python and this "tk" thing you have talked about and
make something that will work for him, am I correct? The other
alternative is to install console mode linux on it and hope that the
ncurses library can be used by python. The system could be as low as a
486 dx2 66 with maybe 16 megs of ram. Well, I just thought I'd give you
people more info on the situation.

Xeys

Check the yellow pages in your area (or closest large city if you're not
in one), for used computer stores. Or just start calling all the
computer stores in your area and ask them if they have any used
computers for sale. I was able to get a Dell Pentium 3 for $45 dollars
last year for a second computer to put Linux on. I just asked him if he
had any old computers for really cheep that booted, and that's what he
found in the back. I just needed to add ram and a hard drive.

You might be surprised what you can get used if you ask around.

Cheers,
Ron

 

[fuzzylollipop]

you need to find another place to work

 

[Edvard Majakari]

From 30 years of application development experience I will tell you
NOT HUMBLY, that Python is easily the most productive, the most read-write
and the most elegant of any of the above. Handsdown better than Java, the
runner up in that group.

I don't want to start a flamewar here - but I would like to point out that not
only the language you use affects productivity, but also tools that support
working with the language affect a lot too. For example, I once thought I
would start writing any documents longer than say, two A4 pages with lout
(I've used LaTeX so far). However, realising how much more supporting tools,
add-ons and utilities LaTeX had, I stayed with that (moreover, some of the
other people already new LaTeX but didn't know lout).

Recently I participated in creating a visual FSM editor as Eclipse plugin. I
hadn't used Eclipse before, but seeing how easy it was to create tests,
refactor code (bicyclerepairman is not even close to features offered by
Eclipse) and use gazillion other tools designed to improve Java productivity
made me realise the language has a really, really great selection of tools and
utilities available.

Now, I earn my bread by coding Python and I do like coding in Python the most,
but sometimes I think I would have been better off with Java - not because of
the language, but because of the environment and sheer selection of tools
available.

Let me emphasize a little more. Even though Python itself is great, I think we
don't have quite yet tools that offer

* Industrial-grade reverse-engineering tool (ie. automatic UML diagram
generation out of code) which also supports creating classes/interfaces out
of UML diagrams, and modifies the other automatically when the other changes

* Automatic unit test case generation (pydev is going to this direction, I
think)

* Decent code coverage tools - and I don't mean statement coverage, but path
coverage or multi-condition coverage

Just see how many handy tools there are for Java if you use Eclipse:

http://eclipse-plugins.2y.net/eclipse/plugins.jsp

(Yes, I know that many of those plugins are not related to any language but
Eclipse and that some of the plugins are specifically Python related, but most
of the good stuff is for Java Development)

Pydev looks really promising, though. With Eclipse, I think it is a very good
alternative to commercial Python IDEs and could mature to the Other Way(TM)
for developing Python programs (the other is, of course, vi(m)/(X)Emacs)

--
# Edvard Majakari Software Engineer
# PGP PUBLIC KEY available Soli Deo Gloria!

$_ = '456476617264204d616a616b6172692c20612043687269737469616e20'; print
join('',map{chr hex}(split/(\w{2})/)),uc substr(crypt(60281449,'es'),2,4),"\n";

 

[phil]

I don't want to start a flamewar here -

No heat, no flames. Everyone's cool

Let me emphasize a little more. Even though Python itself is great, I think we
don't have quite yet tools that offer

Ya know, I just don't know enough about javaworld.
The language I do not like.

I wonder what percentage of the tools you refer to are
Eclipse and not Java per se. ?? I don't know.
The really big bucks of IBM sent Eclipse through the roof.

Python reminds me more of Linux. Incredible no of packages,
kinda disjointed, docs pretty bad, not integrated.
But amazing stuff if you have the stomach for it.
(seen pygame?)
Maybe Python will get a daddy someday.

Comes down to preference. Isn't it absolutely amazing how many
choices we have. Remember the 70's - Cobol, ASM, C, Basic.CICS(shudder)

I am pleased that folks on a Python list feel free to praise
other technologies. That's neat.

 

[Chinook]

Comes down to preference. Isn't it absolutely amazing how many
choices we have. Remember the 70's - Cobol, ASM, C, Basic.CICS(shudder)

And please, no eulogies (especially for CICS) - being reminded of them is bad
for my heart :~) I once did a engineering modeling system in IBM 1130
assembler that ran with overlays in 32K memory, because FORTRAN was too
hoggish. Input was the console keyboard and output was a CalComp plotter.

Python reminds me more of Linux. Incredible no of packages,
kinda disjointed, docs pretty bad, not integrated.
But amazing stuff if you have the stomach for it.
(seen pygame?)
Maybe Python will get a daddy someday.

Seriously, having been involved in several (so called) high-level
productivity languages over the years on both IBM and HP (3000 series), I am
really enamored with Python (not to mention being on the user end :~).
However, as you say ("needs a daddy") it is still for the most part in
hackerdom evolution, and will not be a "mainstream" development platform
until a Sun/IBM/whatever takes it under-wing with that intention in an open
environment (the "suits" have to be convinced they can gain big time
otherwise). Can that happen in the Open-Source arena - I'm not convinced it
can because such is more akin to a staging ground at present.

And what would be really cool is that if the same thing happened with Linux -
it evolved to an elegant OS X like GUI without losing the intuitive
underbelly.

Just any "daddy" won't do though. The least beneficial would be the path of
DOS (sorry, I'm not a MS fan :~)). A major problem is that business thinking
(i.e. the "suits") is overly monopolistic to the point of
counter-productivity. Rather than an evolving open mainstream development
platform (i.e. technical productivity competition) and commercial products
emanating from such, the "suits" are focused on milking anything they can get
their hands on with only short-term bonuses in mind. I guess it all gets
down to human nature (or as Pogo said ...).

Enough, before I really get carried away.

Lee C

 

[Magnus Lycka]

I think Python works on fairly antique hardware, whatever
OS you use (as long as the OS works ok). You can get a DOS
version of Python 2.2 at http://www.caddit.net/ , but I don't
have any good suggestions for a UI then. This might work after
some tweaking: http://www.effbot.org/zone/console-index.htm

If you google for "python curses" you'll find info on that
route, and if you go for a GUI solution on Windows or Linux,
there are more routes than Tkinter. I'm not sure what to
suggest on really old hardware though. Perhaps pyFLTK or FxPy
are lighter than the typical alternatives. See also
http://wiki.python.org/moin/GuiProgramming

Unless we're talking about several installations, getting at
least a Pentium III is obviously much cheaper than to spend
several hours getting the program to work.

For a dirt cheap system with several users, curses and terminals
with a linux server is obviously hard to beat. A slightly more
modern approach would be a web based app.

 

[Christos TZOTZIOY Georgiou]

I wonder what percentage of the tools you refer to are
Eclipse and not Java per se. ?? I don't know.

The really big bucks of IBM sent Eclipse through the roof.

The project name is pretty offensive too, since it's related to the term
"Sun" and not the term "Java".

If one has heard of the differences between Sun and IBM about Java, and
knowing that Eclipse started as an IBM project, then the reasoning for
choosing the name "Eclipse" becomes more obvious...

 

[Riccardo Galli]

The other alternative
is to install console mode linux on it and hope that the ncurses library
can be used by python.

Hi, for curses module and linux, I made a library which give you
various widgets (combobox, buttons,checkbox,menubar,...).
It's hard to find googling so I let you know it here.

curses-extra is its name
http://www.sideralis.net/index.php?action=4&pjid=20

Bye,
Riccardo