> > * Domain experts in fact who would need to implement loads of > > software to help them get their work done but can't. And since > > there's no budget for external developers, nothing get's ever done > > about this. > Well, typically or at least very often sooner or later something > gets done about this as someone finds out that all could be solved > using MS Excel and some macros / VBA programming.
MS Excel is unusable for any kind of serious work, due its serious design deficiences. But that's off-topic here. VB(A) is unusable for everyday office automation because it doesn't offer an interactive commandline interpreter. Besides, both only run^H^H^Hlimp on a pathologic non-operating system that's just as unsuitable for any productive work. But that's off-topic, too. > I would prefer people to invest the same time into a Python based > solution. > But then we're back to the initial point: As long as there's no GUI > builder for Python, most people will stick to Excel / VBA / VB. There are quite a few GUI builders out there for Python. The point is that they are not very "pythonic" imho, i.e. they don't really show what the advantage of Python is for GUIs over those other languages. And imho these GUI builders, just like the frameworks that they generate code for are not very suitable for someone who's not a software developer by profession. Because they require way too much "glue code". And unfortunately the origin of this problem seems to be the open-source development model itself: Since developers of open source development tools (GUI frameworks, GUI builders etc.) usually implement these for their own use, and since these people are typically software developers by profession who come from a C++-dominated background, they don't see the necessity and they don't have any motivation to implement anything that would help all those potential Python users out there who just can't devote the time and effort required to get over that pretty huge step in the learning curve of those frameworks and tools. Please note that this is not meant as criticism to open-source developers, but as a hint that there might be a business opportunity for someone here to develop and sell something for money. ;-) Sincerely, Wolfgang -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
