Windows vs. Linux

[noahmd]

Okay, once-upon-a-time I tried to start programming by learning C. At
the time I was younger and didn't really understand all that C had to
offer. I eventually moved over to Microsoft's Visual Basic. It was
nice to be able to design a visual application with no effort (too bad
I didn't really learn the ins and outs of programming)

Long story short, I want to get back into programming, and Python looks
like a good choice for me to start with, and maybe become advanced
with. Right now I run Windows as my main operating system. On my old
laptop I ran Ubuntu, and liked it very much; however, my new laptop has
a Broadcom wireless card, and it's not very Linux friendly. Is Windows
an okay enviornment in which to program under Python, or do you
recommend that I run a dual-boot of Linux or maybe a VMWare install to
program under Python?

 

[Aahz]

Long story short, I want to get back into programming, and Python looks
like a good choice for me to start with, and maybe become advanced
with. Right now I run Windows as my main operating system. On my old
laptop I ran Ubuntu, and liked it very much; however, my new laptop has
a Broadcom wireless card, and it's not very Linux friendly. Is Windows
an okay enviornment in which to program under Python, or do you
recommend that I run a dual-boot of Linux or maybe a VMWare install to
program under Python?

Windows is an excellent environment for Python! Just Do It. ;-)

(Despite the prepronderence of Linux programmers in the dev team, there
are probably more Windows Python programmers than for any other OS,
simply because there are more Windows users.)
--
Aahz ([email protected]) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by
definition, not smart enough to debug it." --Brian W. Kernighan

 

[Damjan]

Right now I run Windows as my main operating system. On my old

laptop I ran Ubuntu, and liked it very much; however, my new laptop has
a Broadcom wireless card, and it's not very Linux friendly.

of topic: that Broadcom wireless card has a driver included in the latest
kernel 2.6.17, and probably you could easily make it work if you make some
upgrades to Ubuntu.

 

[William Witteman]

On Sun, Jul 30, 2006 at 04:21:34PM -0700, (e-mail address removed) wrote:

offer. I eventually moved over to Microsoft's Visual Basic. It was

<snip />

I'm very sorry.

Long story short, I want to get back into programming, and Python looks
like a good choice for me to start with, and maybe become advanced
with. Right now I run Windows as my main operating system. On my old

A good choice. I write Python code both at home, on a Linux box, and at
work, on Windoze. I find it slightly easier to write Python on Linux
only because I can interact so easily with the OS from the command line
- there are more itches to scratch and Python is one of the best
backscratchers. Python on Linux lets me automate huge swathes of my
life with ease. That said, there is a heck of a lot I can easily do on
Windoze too. The real selling point for me is that I can work on code
for work at home, on a completely different platform, and then take it
to work and I know it'll Just Work(TM).

As a Linux zealot, I'd say use Linux As a pragmatist, use what you
find more comfortable, and enjoy yourself.
--

yours,

William
woolgathering.cx

 

[OMouse]

Python should port nicely between Windows and Linux so there should be
no need to dual-boot.

 

[James Stroud]

Okay, once-upon-a-time I tried to start programming by learning C. At
the time I was younger and didn't really understand all that C had to
offer. I eventually moved over to Microsoft's Visual Basic. It was
nice to be able to design a visual application with no effort (too bad
I didn't really learn the ins and outs of programming)

Long story short, I want to get back into programming, and Python looks
like a good choice for me to start with, and maybe become advanced
with. Right now I run Windows as my main operating system. On my old
laptop I ran Ubuntu, and liked it very much; however, my new laptop has
a Broadcom wireless card, and it's not very Linux friendly. Is Windows
an okay enviornment in which to program under Python, or do you
recommend that I run a dual-boot of Linux or maybe a VMWare install to
program under Python?

I recommend a triple boot mac.

James



--
James Stroud
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095

http://www.jamesstroud.com/

 

[BartlebyScrivener]

Windows XP is fine. I am learning Python on Windows first with an eye
toward moving to Linux.

If you like, get the ActivePython distribution, which comes with the
Win32 extensions.

If you start liking Python, consider adding the IPython shell. There
are commandline tweaks you can do to make the XP commandline bearable,
in fact, I found them on this forum, so perhaps search on XP
commandline.

Good luck,

rd

 

[3KWA]

I am not a programming expert but I use python everyday on Windows XP:
* python standard distribution (CPython)
* iPython
* cygwin for the command line interaction, add a unix/linux flavour to
the blend

EuGeNe

 

[jean-michel bain-cornu]

Hi,
(e-mail address removed) a écrit :

Is Windows
an okay enviornment in which to program under Python, or do you
recommend that I run a dual-boot of Linux or maybe a VMWare install to
program under Python?

I'm used to practice windows & linux and it makes sense to use python on
both because the compatibility is excellent. Take care to use os.sep as
the file path separator if you plan to stay compatible.
My favorite os is linux, but on windows you have pythonwin which is an
excellent python extension with a very good debugger. Also boa works
fine on windows but have annoying bugs on linux.
Furthermore, python comes with linux (nothing to install) and not with
windows (needs python install if you deploy on users pcs).
Regards,
jm

 

[Andy Dingley]

Is Windows
an okay enviornment in which to program under Python, or do you
recommend that I run a dual-boot of Linux or maybe a VMWare install to
program under Python?

Python is one of the best languages I've found for
platform-independence - significantly better than Perl. Right now I'm
coding Python that runs happily under Redhat, Windows /Cygwin and
Windows native. It also integrates closely with command line tools like
subversion, including piping their output into Python-based XML
parsers. This really wouldn't be easy with Perl.

Find yourself an editor that's pretty similar under both Unix and
Windows. jEdit is a good place to start.

You might also like to look at running Cygwin under Windows. It's a
Unix-like command shell that provides nearly every command-line Unix
tool you could want on a Windows box. Can be a little awkward at times,
but it's a huge advantage over raw Windows.

I'd never recommend dual-boot for anything!
Hardware is cheap, time and trouble is expensive.

 

[jean-michel bain-cornu]

Andy Dingley a écrit :

I'd never recommend dual-boot for anything!

Don't agree man, it's good for testing...

 

[metaperl]

Python is one of the best languages I've found for
platform-independence - significantly better than Perl.

The reason I'm going with vmware is because I'm afraid that I will need
to compile a C portiion of a Python module and that will not be a
pretty picture under Windows... true or false?

 

[William Witteman]

Python is one of the best languages I've found for
platform-independence - significantly better than Perl. Right now I'm
coding Python that runs happily under Redhat, Windows /Cygwin and
Windows native. It also integrates closely with command line tools like
subversion, including piping their output into Python-based XML
parsers. This really wouldn't be easy with Perl.

No, it's easy with Perl too - but this is a Python list, so use Python

Find yourself an editor that's pretty similar under both Unix and
Windows. jEdit is a good place to start.

This is very good advice. I would recommend vim or emacs (mostly vim,
but I don't wish to start a holy war) as the text-editing power tools of
choice, but you should find something that suits your style. This list
can probably provide some guidance there, too.

You might also like to look at running Cygwin under Windows. It's a
Unix-like command shell that provides nearly every command-line Unix
tool you could want on a Windows box. Can be a little awkward at times,
but it's a huge advantage over raw Windows.

Ditto.
--

yours,

William
woolgathering.cx

 

[Duncan Booth]

The reason I'm going with vmware is because I'm afraid that I will need
to compile a C portiion of a Python module and that will not be a
pretty picture under Windows... true or false?

Provided you have the correct compilers installed it is no harder compiling
C extensions under Windows than under Linux. The problem is getting the
correct toolchain installed. You could try the instructions in section A of
http://wiki.python.org/moin/PyrexOnWindows

You only need to follow section B of that document if you want to use
Pyrex, but if you are planning on writing C extensions I strongly recommend
using Pyrex. Also, these days, you can use ctypes for many cases where you
used to have to compile a C extension.

 

[James Stroud]

Take care to use os.sep

This is an important point. You should read up on the os.path module to
make sure you are doing things in a platform independent way, for
example, its better to use:

os.path.join('my', 'favorite', 'dir')

than

"\\".join(['my', 'favorite', 'dir'])

because the latter will bonk on linux. The former is platform
independent. This hits at the same issue as using os.sep:

os.sep.join(['my', 'favorite', 'dir'])

But os.path has takes care of many of these issues in one module.

James

--
James Stroud
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095

http://www.jamesstroud.com/

 

[diffuser78]

Linux can let you do more in Python and this comes from my personal
exprience. Ubuntu Dapper should let you install drivers easily for
wireless...a little bit tweaking might be required but its worth the
effort. Python and Ubuntu rock...go fot it.

 

[diffuser78]

I'd never recommend dual-boot for anything!

Hardware is cheap, time and trouble is expensive.

Dual-booting if so easy and helpful, I have always found it to be
extremely useful.

You might have a bad experience but I have my laptop and desktop both
running dual boot successfully for 4 and a half years now.

 

[Andy Dingley]

Python and Ubuntu rock...go fot it.

That's nice. I've just burned myself a new Ubuntu f*ck-a-duck release
CD intending to rebuild a flakey old Deadrat box with it. Once it's
done I'd like to be running Python with some USB to Dallas one-wire
hardware on it, re-plugged from an old Windows box. Nice to know I have
a hope of getting somewhere.

 

[OMouse]

That is important, but apparently Windows (at least XP) will work fine
with the forward slash that Linux uses. I just tried it in the command
prompt and it works. I'm sure other platforms use the forward slash
separator as well. You've just covered three major platforms (Mac OS X,
WinXP and Linux) without using os.path.join.

And finally, from the Wikipedia entry on Slash (punctuation):
``Note however that the "forward slash" will be translated into a
backslash by most versions of DOS and Windows, in contexts where there
is little ambiguity with command-line options.''

-Rudolf

Take care to use os.sep

This is an important point. You should read up on the os.path module to
make sure you are doing things in a platform independent way, for
example, its better to use:

os.path.join('my', 'favorite', 'dir')

than

"\\".join(['my', 'favorite', 'dir'])

because the latter will bonk on linux. The former is platform
independent. This hits at the same issue as using os.sep:

os.sep.join(['my', 'favorite', 'dir'])

But os.path has takes care of many of these issues in one module.

James

--
James Stroud
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095

http://www.jamesstroud.com/

 

[Sybren Stuvel]

James Stroud enlightened us with:

its better to use:

os.path.join('my', 'favorite', 'dir')

than

"\\".join(['my', 'favorite', 'dir'])

because the latter will bonk on linux.

Ehm... replace that with "the latter with bonk on every OS except
Microsoft Windows". Windows is the weird one in OS-land, because they
are the only one that use the most widely used escape-character (the
backslash) as path separator.

Sybren