Java and Python

[Gerhard Häring]

Ahmed Moustafa wrote:
> Gerhard Häring wrote:
> 
>> (Followup-To set to comp.lang.python, as this doesn't have any
>> relevance to Java any more)
>>
>> Ahmed Moustafa wrote in comp.lang.python:
>>
>>> How about web development?
>>
>>
>> A little research of yourself would tell you all you need to know, but
>> I'm happy to give my informed opinion ;-)
>>
>> Web development is one area where Python really shines. Almost all of
>> the Python users I know personally use it for web development.
>>
>> My biggest webapp was build an online shop system with Python and
>> MySQL. From scratch, with its one templating system (of course),
>> dynamic site navigation and all that stuff. Development time was only
>> some 6 to 8 weeks.
> 
> May I ask you what the scal for your webapp was? (Because MySQL is 
> related to small to mid-size web applications). Is it the same case with 
> Python?

It never got into production (client killed it for $$$ reasons), but it 
was fully functional. I'm now using a rewritten and stripped-down 
version of the navigation part for my homepage. Among other things, I've 
learnt why written contracts are a Good Thing [tm].

As for scaling, my solution was using Python CGI scripts. It did scale 
reasonably, but I was already experiencing the startup overhead of the 
CGI way. In the end, I kicked the sgmllib module, because it was too 
slow on my development machine (a blazingly-fast Pentium 90). Of course 
there are plenty of ways to have a "normal" application server run 
Python scripts, but the client wanted a "cheap" solution, which would 
run on a typical ISP account.

Gerhard