Pyphon vs Visual Basic

Discussion in 'Scripting & Programming' started by michael78, May 28, 2008.

  1. michael78

    michael78 Terabyte Poster

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    I've been wanting to learn a language as my next project. I'm not wanting to do anything commercial or become a programmer but think it would help in my 2nd line support role to be able to knock up helpful apps and scripts.

    The two that seem to me that are good for a beginner with no experience are Python and Visual Basic. I was leaning towards Visual Basic due to Microsoft having a free development tool in Visual Basic Express but everyone seems to rave about Python and that it's very flexible and powerful. The other thing is I work in a Windows environment and wouldn't Visual Basic be a better choice for the Windows platform and Windows based apps or doesn't it make any difference?

    Also can you create both scripts and apps with Visual basic and python or do you need a scripting language to create scripts (as I've never heard of a program created in python for example) or have I got that wrong.
     
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  2. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    python scripts require python installed on the host machine to run as far as im aware. vbscript will run on pretty much all windows machines, so for a windows environment, I would go for that. Its going to be much easier to run a vbscript app on a users machine than to install python, and run it.

    If you are wanting to do scripting things, I would personally go with vbscript over vb. its lightweight - can be designed in notepad, wont need installation, and wont need the .net framework (although most windows machines will now have it anyway). You also wont need to worry about designing user interfaces.

    I started with vbscript, and its fairly easy to pick up, and can do quite useful stuff. I used it for AD queries and tasks quite a lot. and the lack of user interface makes things that much easier to knock out a quick script. That, and you can step up for vb.net after a while if you wish.
     
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  3. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

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    Question 1: Will you always work in a Windows-only environment? If you can't guarantee that neither VB nor VBScript will be portable between platforms.

    Question 2: Does openness matter to you at all? If it does then Python is a much better choice.

    Question 3: How much of your work will consist of working with strings and manipulating data? Python shines at that.

    I've written Python scripts for administration tasks at work and Python works very well for that too. Yes, Python would have to be installed on Windows boxes, but it's also installed by default on almost all Linux boxes that I know of.

    I guess it boils down to you the fact that you can choose to stay in a Windows-only environment and learn Windows-only tools, or you can choose to start to prepare for the future in which Python will be a common tool.

    Perl is also cross-platform and very commonly used, but it does have a much steeper learning curve than Python and is not nearly as readable and understandable as Python code.

    I've played with VBScript about as much as I've played with Python, and I have to say Python is, for me anyway, a much better fit. It is just much more readable and it just makes more sense to me. It's built more along the lines of how my brain works. I've been able to accomplish more with Python than I did with VBScript.
     
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  4. michael78

    michael78 Terabyte Poster

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    Cheers for the replies guys. Just to answer a few questions I have always worked in a Windows environment so I suppose Visual Basic is the way forward for me personally as I didn't know you had to have it installed to run scripts (told you I was clueless about this sort of thing).

    I like what people say about Python but for what I want to do I need apps and scripts that I create to run on any PC in the office so for that reason I think Pyphon is ruled out for now.

    What is Visual Basic Express like? Is it a good platform to learn Visual Basic?
     
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  5. Mathematix

    Mathematix Megabyte Poster

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    Oh!... I!... But!!... I better not say anything! :D
     
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  6. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    LOL. Good choice. :wink:
     
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  7. Mathematix

    Mathematix Megabyte Poster

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    Heh. Would be interesting to see the direction it takes, though. :biggrin
     
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  8. ThomasMc

    ThomasMc Gigabyte Poster

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    Another vote for Visual Basic, especially for reverse sorting algorithms :p:twisted: and with things like Mono-Project, wine, and parallels all closing the gap of cross platform
     
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  9. BosonJosh

    BosonJosh Gigabyte Poster

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    Note that VBScript is not the same thing as Visual Basic. It has similar syntax, but VBScript is intended for scripting routines, while VB is intended for creating full applications. VBScript does not necessarily require something like Visual Basic Express (which is known as an Integrated Development Environment (IDE)). You can create a VBScript file in Notepad and save it as a .vbs file, and you will be able to run the script on client machines. Creating a Visual Basic app can become much more complicated if you want to add user interface code.
     
  10. Mathematix

    Mathematix Megabyte Poster

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    :rocks :thumbleft :morebeer :beers2
     
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  11. mark_uol

    mark_uol Bit Poster

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    This is not too difficult in Visual studio; mostly just a matter choosing between forms and console app and then navigating the IDE for the required controls. A good starting point when using script would be to simulate a GUI with a series of message boxes to control the interaction between user and script. MN
     
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