wxPython

wxPython is a GUI toolkit for the Python programming language. It allows Python programmers to create programs with a robust, highly functional graphical user interface, simply and easily. It is implemented as a Python extension module (native code) that wraps the popular wxWidgets cross platform GUI library, which is written in C++.

Like Python and wxWidgets, wxPython is Open Source which means that it is free for anyone to use and the source code is available for anyone to look at and modify. Or anyone can contribute fixes or enhancements to the project.

wxPython is a cross-platform toolkit. This means that the same program will run on multiple platforms without modification. Currently supported platforms are 32-bit Microsoft Windows, most Unix or unix-like systems, and Macintosh OS X.

• http://www.wxpython.org/

pyQT

PyQt is a set of Python bindings for Nokia’s Qt application framework and runs on all platforms supported by Qt including Windows, MacOS/X and Linux. There are two sets of bindings: PyQt v4 supports Qt v4; and the older PyQt v3 supports Qt v3 and earlier. The bindings are implemented as a set of Python modules and contain over 300 classes and over 6,000 functions and methods.

• http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/software/pyqt/download
• Supports lots of great libraries such as:
  • • The QtNetwork module contains classes for writing UDP and TCP clients and servers. It includes classes that implement FTP and HTTP clients and support DNS lookups. Network events are integrated with the event loop making it very easy to develop networked applications.
    • The QtOpenGL module contains classes that enable the use of OpenGL in rendering 3D graphics in PyQt applications.
    • The QtWebKit module implements a web browser engine based on the WebKit open source browser engine used by Apple’s Safari. It allows the methods and properties of Python objects to be published and appear as JavaScript objects to scripts embedded in HTML pages.
    • The QtScript module contains classes that enable PyQt applications to be scripted using Qt’s JavaScript interpreter.

PyGTK: GTK+ for Python

PyGTK lets you to easily create programs with a graphical user interface using the Python programming language. The underlying GTK+ library provides all kind of visual elements and utilities for it and, if needed, you can develop full featured applications for the GNOME Desktop.

PyGTK applications are truly multiplatform and they’re able to run, unmodified, on Linux, Windows, MacOS X and other platforms.

• http://www.pygtk.org/

Opinion

My personal opinion is that wxPython is best for many windows developers.  PyQt looks great and has many great libraries, Qt itself is a very fast C++ library so using it is beneficial.  PyGTK is also great but more common for *nix apps.

With os.system(my_command)

import os
os.system("c:\\windows\\notepad.exe")

Or with popen2.popen3(my_command)

import popen2
popen2.popen3("c:\\windows\\notepad.exe")

amfast is a new remoting library  that looks to be as sweet as pyamf (where sweet == fast and useful).  I am checking out amfast now but the speed boost alone might be worth it.  For instance, working with real-time games, when you need static content you need to grab that quickly sometimes via a content service.  The faster that link the better. It also has Twisted integration which is great for networking and SQLAlchemy integration which is in my opinion the best ORM for python (pyamf has twisted, django, pylons, sqlalchemy as well)

amfast is well documented and has some great examples.  If you have the Python addiction, check it.

Description

• AmFast is a Flash remoting framework for Python.
• AmFast can use AMF to communicate between Python and Flash, Flex, and any other system that supports AMF.
• AMF is a binary object serialization protocol used by Actionscript based applications.

Server Features

• Support for NetConnection and RemoteObject RPC.
• Support for Producer/Consumer ‘push’ messaging with HTTP polling, HTTP long-polling, and real-time HTTP streaming channels.
• Support for authentication with NetConnection and RemoteObject.
• Flexible Target mapping system to map message destinations to invokable Target objects.
• Support for ChannelSets with multiple Channels to expose resources in different ways.
• Built in Channels for CherryPy, Twisted Web, and plain WSGI.
• Support for configurable Endpoints. Use AmFast’s built-in AMF encoder/decoder C-extension, or use an external AMF encoder/decoder, such as PyAmf for a pure-Python implementation.

AMF Encoder/Decoder Features

• AMF0/AMF3 encoder/decoder written in C as a Python extension for speed.
• More than 10x faster than the PyAmf encoder/decoder (even when using PyAmf’s optional C-extension).
• Map custom classes with ClassDef objects for complete control over serialization/de-serialization.
• Full support for IExternalizable objects.
• Data persistence with SqlAlchemy including remotely-loadable lazy-loaded attributes.
• Actionscript code generation from ClassDef objects.

    classname = "ClassToLookFor"
    the_module = __import__("my.module", globals(), locals(), [classname])
    the_class = getattr(the_module, classname)
    obj = the_class()

More on introspection in Python (sometimes called Reflection in other languages like C# and Java):

• Python docs on introspection using the inspect module
• IBM page on a tour of Python introspection