Using python on the web

[Gordon McMillan]

Charley Horse  wrote:

> I've just started fooling with python. I've looked around the python 
> site and a number of the other sites referenced there and am a bit 
> puzzled. Umm... how does one go about using python for web applications, 
> especially database driven apps? Almost everything deals with python 
> just as a language, as C++ would be. Not much about the web 
> specifically. I was a bit shocked to find the only direct refs on about 
> this at python.org are entwined with CGI (unless I missed it). I have no 
> exposure to CGI, but rather to php, CF, and ASP, so python has gone from 
> looking very attractive to looking... well, like a puzzle. I know about 
> Zope, but am interested in how one uses python on the web just by 
> itself.

ASP, php and CF are all descended from CGI. By creating a 
CGI framework and / or putting hooks into the web server 
(there are a number of pure Python ones to play with) you can 
create environments that look like any one of these. Almost 
any web server will run CGI (with sometimes a bit of tweaking) 
so the docs focus on that. At the other end of the scale, Zope 
does everything those guys do, and usually better. IIS is 
widespread enough that there's a significant Python 
subculture doing ASP in Python. But the grandaddy of them 
all (and still the only portable one) is CGI.

- Gordon