In SX Microcontrollers, SX/B Compiler and SX-Key Tool, CounterRotatingProps wrote:

Jon,

Blender is one of the best programs I've ever seen. Even its initially counter-intuitive GUI becomes efficient once you learn it. And integrating Python was one of smartest things they did.

Python's easy to learn - and, more important, the syntax and data handling are easy to remember.  The difficulties are in learning the libraries/modules available that extend not the language but its functionality.  For example, there are FFT packages for scientific, raw data and for Blender specifically.  The difficulty with learning libraries/functions for Blender would be true regardless of language - as you know, the working guts of a program can be exposed through an interface, then some language is used to access and manipulate (script) those functions so you can make the program do more than it does out of the box.  Blender has a gazillion functions, so Python makes them easier to wrap your head around than would say VBScript - the former can encapsulate them into modules, the latter would have to do that in more rudimentary objects. (OK purists would argue that, but let's not go there please - it's messy in VB(x))

One of the things you might want to study closely is iPython, it really helped me learn the language.

> if I could learn how to develop cross-platform apps with nice UIs in Python, that would be even cooler.

You can!  There are several cross-platform GUI modules that work pretty well and are mature, but there's a learning curve on each.  Probably the most well-known are "wxWidgets" and "Tk"

for a good overview, look here:
http://wiki.python.org/moin/GuiProgramming

Keep in mind that Python is a script language, so you won't get the speed if your GUI needs to update data fast (but you can hook into C/C++ and even ASM, if you need :)

Jon, while we have your attention (and Bean too, if you happen to read this) - one of the most astounding advances you guys could make in the already amazing SX/B would be to expose part of its internals... I can well imagine that you'd be more inclined to use VBscript via the windows scripting host tools because of  the similarity of their basic-like syntaxes. But I would encourage you all to take the embedded Python-script approach instead. Here's why: exposing it's interface via Inspect/automation and then optionally embedding a scripting language is about the same amount of work regardless of the script language you choose. Any language can usually talk to the automation interface - so why layer Python on top of that ?  Because of the massive amount of Python libraries and their continued growth.  

Several examples of all kinds of interesting possibilities: dynamically downloading different virtual devices; seemless interface to PC-based instrumentation (Viewport for SX anyone?); translation of Python libraries into SX-asm modules (probably too cool for our own good ;); etc. etc.

cheers
- Howard

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