[Edu-sig] web2py 1.38

[David MacQuigg]

Hello Massimo,

I'm really impressed with web2py.  Even with the huge productivity advantage of Python, this is still a big project.

My first impression, after a few hours, is that this could be our "Rails on Python" - a simple web framework for those of us who know Python, but don't want to learn Ruby for just for one nifty program.

I'm going through the cookbook.pdf tutorial now, and running into some snags.  I see some of these were corrected in your latest 1.39 release, and some were due to my typing errors in transcribing the example code to my machine.  I'll send you more details in a few days, but for those on this list who might be making the same mistakes - be very careful about those hard-to-see symbols like _ and ) vs }.  These are very difficult to see in the cookbook.pdf document.  You might want to download the example files, and do cut-and-paste instead of typing.  Make sure you get version 1.39.  The download didn't work in 1.38.

Off topic:  Why did they called it Ruby on Rails?  Seems like the greatness of Rails has very little to do with Ruby and everything to do with good program design - properly encapsulating all the details not really necessary for a typical web app developer.

The name "web2py" doesn't really grab my attention.  How about Rails on Python, or something else a little more memorable than web2py?

-- Dave


At 02:58 PM 7/9/2008 -0500, Massimo Di Pierro wrote:

>Hello everybody,
>
>I posted web2py version 1.38 (www.web2py.com). It is a web framework  
>originally developed at DePaul University as a teaching tool. If you  
>are familiar with Django or Rails than you know what this is about.
>
>web2py is very easy to use because you unzip it, click it, and it  
>starts web server, database, and you do everything through the web  
>interface. Python is in the package and has no dependencies.
>
>The original idea behind web2py was not that of teaching how to use a  
>web framework but to make the role of the framework so easy and  
>transparent that it can be used as a tool for teaching intro to  
>python programming. Even students without programming experience  
>understand the concept of URL, Input/Output, storage. In web2py a  
>function is called when you visit a url. The output is the resulting  
>web page. They edit the code as they edit a wiki page. Instead of  
>building sample loops over prime numbers, you can as easily loop and  
>build an RSS feed, etc.
>
>If you want to use it let me know and I will send you a draft version  
>of the book.
>
>Massimo
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