Python for data driven website?

[François Lepoutrre]

Hi,

We have delivered a portal with business-content on the web recently
and made the switch recently from ms iis-based development
into python-based web apps. Develop on win32, deliver on *nix.

Application speed is comparable to isapi-based apps. That means fast.
But CODING IS SO MUCH EASIER once python fits your brain.

Our development base:
- python for full and fine-grain programmatic control of the
http content delivered,

- apache+mod_python for ultra-fast delivery,
(you can have database handles and python content
persist in into the apache engine - great for speed
and gentle to the db engine)

- mxodbc for connectivity (our server solutions can
be delivered independant from the db-engine on
both linux and win32 platforms) and mxdatetime
for easy datetime management (a real code saver
for date-intensive business apps).

For information we have sticked to "proprietary database"
for the moment.

If you deliver application with relatively simple data structures
sure open source db will do.  "big iron" may still be worth the money.

Possibly for a couple of years. If your application is really
data-driven (that the case for ours), the db may well become
the bottleneck at some stage).

But python will do its part. Clean, robust and no-fuss language.

You can deliver fully productive python "servlets" after a couple of
weeks...
And run them on win32 or *nix. Only asp and php will compete.

Clearly the "non Visual Basic Language" for the web.
Web-programming is not visual anyway....

I cannot comment on page-based web-programming (asp,jsq,php,psp).
No practice in this field. PHP seems pretty strong if
your application essentially requires html merging+some scripting.

If that is the case i'd stick to php scripting. That was not ours.
A "page" approach would have lead  to spaghetti-coding. Hugh!

In case your app is more of a of servlet thing (often the case
for data-driven apps), i'd recommend that you try to
understand and test the python cgi model thoroughly
first and see if your brains feel comfortable with it.

If that is the case :
- stick to cgi for a while,  roll your own "servlet" stuff
(may or not be complex) and optimize later thru mod_python
(we did that) or fastcgi,

- try a framework that fits your brains
(possibly zope if the app is on on the groupware
collaborative side, webware if is a more conventional stuff
or even the dead-simple mod_python publisher module)

You are on the right track.

Good luck to you