Newbie's 1st Web App decisions!

[Scrumpy]

Thanks for your feedback.

paul at boddie.net (Paul Boddie) wrote in
news:23891c90.0204050156.1840d913 at posting.google.com: 

> I hadn't seen this one before, but it looks rather interesting. A
> number of people have already asked about the Web modules overview
> which I had, and in the replacement document(s) I should attempt to
> cover Slither as well as the other major frameworks.

Alias, I also wanted to see your previous Web modules overwiew but am 
looking forward to seeing your replacement doc(s) ;-) Do you have a website 
I can visit so that I'll know when you publish those docs?

[snip]

> Cheetah is a templating system, but you should not let the other
> options listed confuse you too much - whether one uses mod_python,
> mod_snake or PyApache should really only be a deployment and/or
> performance consideration.

>From what I'd read, it seemed like mod_snake was ahead of mod_python in 
implementing Apache 2x support.

[snip]

> There are live sites running Webware (such as http://www.vorbis.com)
> and whilst, in my opinion, there are various issues that arise about
> support for certain things which one might have believed to have been
> covered by now, the development community is very active and very
> eager to improve the framework. Reading the list shows how hard it is
> to write a general Web framework, and I would recommend anyone
> thinking of writing their own framework to skim the archives (and view
> the Wiki) at the very least.

Personally I find it confusing at this stage of development of Python based 
web app servers/frameworks. Although many projects overlap (some more than 
others), I guess it just shows that no one has yet found a 'silver bullet' 
solution. Perhaps with the development requirements of various types of 
Python web apps, it won't be possible for one Python web app server/RAD 
tool to even come close to covering all the bases.

As I'm a Python newbie, I'm looking for a general, rather than specialized, 
web app platform and dev tools. I'm not a purist (dev would take too long 
:) ) as I don't want to create everyting and the kitchen sink myself.

> There are actually many persistence modules in Python, as it turns
> out, partly because persistence is a bit like Web page templating -
> everyone has their own idea about how it should be done - but it's
> also a subject which lends itself to different approaches. (In the
> article you referenced, I still agree with those comments on
> templating systems.)

I do like to separate style, layout, app and data and will avoid using PSP, 
Cheetah etc. completely or at least in ways which integrate app code within 
HTML pages.

Just the sound of templates/rendering tools on the other hand, does sound 
interesting. Provided that they are sufficiently flexible i.e. all sites 
don't look like clones, then it would be worth looking at projects which 
include these.

> Having experimented with Zope, before becoming disappointed or
> concerned about development, deployment and management issues, and
> finally looking into Zope again after seeing interesting applications
> like Squishdot in widespread production use, I think Zope is very
> suitable for a number of application types. Moreover, through various
> features, Zope specially addresses areas that the other frameworks are
> less likely to address "out of the box", such as the way applications
> can be configured by creating objects at appropriate places in the
> object database - this is very intuitive (and quite remarkable) once
> the concepts are understood.

It'll be good to hear more about the application types to which Zope is 
more suited.

I think that Zope is one of the first projects that Python newbies 
'consider' using, when looking for web app servers/RAD tools to help in 
developing their first web app. There is quite a lot of user 'noise' though 
, which makes me concerned whether I should begin by devoting time to learn 
Zope. That's why I am looking at other, (less complex?) projects.

Thanks again,
Scrumpy :)
has left the building