Want to make apps - Is Python the answer?

14 replies
Hello,

I would like to learn how to make apps that can help me with my SEO and IM work. It would be stuff like scrape websites, get data from APIs, manipulate affiliate feeds, autosubmitters etc.

A coworker recommended Python for this kind of thing. Would you agree?
#answer #apps #make #python
  • Profile picture of the author kkoechel
    my answer is perl. I use perl, so it's my hammer.

    The *reason* I use perl however is 4 fold, but Python has most of these benefits too:

    1) perl has been around since the internet was created, good and bad. It's libs are mature. So are Pythons.
    2) perl is portable as hell and looks alot like php so syntacticly if this is your first language, a c based one will help you understand non-python examples better at the very least
    3) perl's regular expressions and hash tables are second to, well, maybe Python. Python might win this one, but it's a difference of 99.5 and 99.4.
    4) perl is easy to read, and fun to write. Personal preference. The stars I was born under. Take your pick.

    Perl has tons of examples too and many times php examples can be used easily in perl. Having someone you can ask helps alot too. If your buddy already knows Python, I'd go with Python.
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  • Profile picture of the author Capitalist_Pig
    Python is an awesome language. If you want to be a programmer, choose Python - your code will be elegant and easy for you to work on later.

    PHP is a common language. If you want to be a marketer, use PHP - your code will be harder to read, but there will be thousands of freelancers who will be able to modify it later when you hire them.

    There is nothing PHP can do Python can't, or vice-versa.

    If you use Python, check out Django. I love Django, even though I use PHP in 99% of my programming projects.
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  • Profile picture of the author darthdeus
    Python is really great choice. It's very simple to learn, it forces you to write clean code, which is also great. And it's very popular, meaning lots of community support and libraries.

    It's probably the best language for anyone to learn as a first language. Don't get me wrong, simple doesn't mean bad or weak. Python has Django, which is amazing web framework, and lot's of other things are done in Python.

    Second language of choice would be Ruby, which is little harder, but on the other hand much more elegant. As a Ruby programmer I can say that after working with virtually every programming language and environment there is, I like Ruby the most ... it's very effective and fun to write in.

    Please don't start with PHP unless you want to do web, and even then don't start with PHP

    It would be stuff like scrape websites, get data from APIs, manipulate affiliate feeds, autosubmitters
    Both Python and Ruby are literally made for this. I write these things every other day I need something done in IM that can be automated, and it's much easier to do it in higher level scripting language like Python and Ruby.

    As of Perl ... it's not a language I'd recommend. It's powerful indeed, but it forces very bad habits. Ruby was actually made with the intention to create better Perl.

    my answer is perl. I use perl, so it's my hammer.
    That's exactly what Perl is ... a hammer
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    • Profile picture of the author Tashi Mortier
      I'd recommend python, too.

      You have a lot of bindings to it so you can even build decent desktop applications. Also a lot of libraries are built in and it works very good on Windows.

      You can simply download ActivePython.


      I used Perl once... The syntax is just like no language uses it anymore. Most languages are somewhat "C-Style" nowadays.

      So if you want anything recent and easy use Python.
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  • Profile picture of the author mystand
    I am a fulltime python programmer and just love it. I found it after spending time doing PHP and it was the best thing to happen to me. Python is cleaner, prettier, and easier to code in than PHP... especially if you use Django.

    I can go from idea to working tool or site way faster with django/python then I ever could in PHP.

    If you do get into python, check out the PyCharm IDE. It's super wonderful and lets you program django without having to use the command line, so there is less program switching needed. (I have no relation to PyCharm.. I just like it).
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    • Profile picture of the author h_al
      +1 for Ruby.
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  • Profile picture of the author badwolf
    python is good, and comes with lots of library support for web programming. on the other hand, perl (with the LWP module) is really great for quick jobs, particularly those what need regular expressions.
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    • Profile picture of the author Eager2SEO
      Originally Posted by badwolf View Post

      python is good, and comes with lots of library support for web programming. on the other hand, perl (with the LWP module) is really great for quick jobs, particularly those what need regular expressions.
      php/perl/python are all excellent. I come from a C++/C/Java/.net/php background.

      php is easier than perl (in my opinion). perl is very powerful, however.

      I'm starting to learn some python and I can say its very compact, expressive, powerful and neat. I believe much of Google is written in python.
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      • Profile picture of the author badwolf
        The original google web crawler was written in (asynchronous) python - the asynchronous bit helped a lot, I guess, by not making threads hang waiting for a response from servers. But that was way back and they may have rewritten it since then. There's some stuff on that in the Brin and Page paper.
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  • Profile picture of the author Thomas Michal
    if you want to scrape use

    Python with beautifulsoup...BOOM
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  • Profile picture of the author Thomas Michal
    Oh and if you're looking to automate things check out

    "autoit"

    it's way easy
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  • Profile picture of the author JackPowers
    Thanks for the suggestions, I am going to try and fit in some time to learn Python.

    Now next up, can anyone recommend a newbie friendly Python tutorial? It would be great if it had some IM related examples.
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