>Of course I was talking about getting python on phones (handhelds, etc) and not desktops. The only issue so far has been only the return key on windows for desktop apps. Of course I'm using Dabo and many of the issues are taken care of.
>
>>On the web end in one customer base we recently sampled the >Asp.net growth is remarkable (and nearly none of the many >python frameworks are used, similarly minuscule RoR, but PHP >still has sizable percentage of "old" smaller users, but >less growth even in pages count). Java also drives a number >of sites (especially from bigger teams) and java WS or >XML-RPC as well as old (S)FTP and HTTP file transfer are the >data exchange routes. This is within local branches of >govt., state and city level.
>
>I really don't know what to say about the info. I know that Ruby is very popular ( if list traffic is a indicator) and
>Python was awarded the language of 2007.
>http://www.tiobe.com/index.htm?tiobe_index
>It went from 8 to 6th.

I am not knocking python - currently I get easier and better money elsewhere. Dunno if this is too shortsighted.

>But my guess is ASP is not the way to go. I think people are tired of web apps that don't match the way desktop apps work. So I think we will see flex2 and air kind of web apps in the future. But all of them as of today suffer from database access issues.

I agree that sophisticated desktop apps are still not really ripe for webapp. But things previously put on paper forms sometimes is - and govt. has oodles of it.

>>Back end use is split between oracle, DB2 and SQL-Server and >some Postgres. Sun's aquisition of MySQL might change that - >and a large part of workgroups in private economy thinks >Excel is a great way to store data.
>
>Gee I always thought MySQL was the most used database engine on the internet due to LAMP and people like google, and amazon. My customers don't buy oracle (although I have one guy). I have mostly MS-SQL,Postgres and DBF's. I like Postgres the most.

If you get a shared server, it is nearly always the pre-installed dB. But we sampled our govt. client base - they don't use it, but they are also not on shared servers<g>.

>Right now I think python leverages my VFP knowledge the most and it's cross platform enough for desktop apps. In the future both of the popular GUI's (QT, wxPython) are going to be web enabled. Both are using webkit so it looks like the desktop code will run on the web. I'm sure there will be issues and I wonder how they will interface to database engines. But the demo's show the GUI part working.

I'll keep lurking on Ed's dev mail list...