Python-friendly hosting (was Re: merits of Lisp vs Python)

[Paul Boddie]

On 9 Mar, 02:32, John Nagle <n... at animats.com> wrote:
>

[Dedicated server offerings]

I'm not so familiar with dedicated servers, being unlikely to buy into
that kind of hosting any time soon - I'm not running a business with
serious reliability/control/uptime constraints where I could justify
spending that kind of money. However...

>      In neither case is the Python environment typically ready for serious use
> out of the box.

Well, I can't say much about the off-the-shelf, locked down solutions
with Plesk control panels, but if you just get a box with the pipes
("an empty machine in a rack"), you make from that what you will. Such
a solution isn't likely to be any good for Perl, PHP or Ruby out of
the box, either. I mean, what's the operating system? Do you have to
provide that? If so, any modern GNU/Linux distribution would give you
lots of acceptable packages for Python.

>      There's denial in the Python community that this is a problem, but it is.
> The Ruby on Rails people get it; they work to provide a seamless experience
> for web developers.  Which is why their market share is way up over two years
> ago.

They got a number of things right. However, the big difference as I
see it is that instead of wondering why various providers don't
support Rails, they've either gone and started their own (including
virtual private server solutions), or they've found existing, flexible
providers (such as WebFaction) who were already providing lots of
plumbing for various Python-based solutions and persuaded them to
provide support for Rails. Last time I looked, Rails deployment
situation seemed closely tied to FastCGI and a lot of other stuff that
is arguably less attractive to various hosting providers than many of
the ways you can deploy Python Web solutions.

As for the denial, I can see your point to an extent. Before the Rails
hype there were discussions about making Python solutions as
attractive to deploy as PHP solutions, but a lot of the "movers and
shakers" in the Python Web community seem to have the luxury of
managing their own Internet-facing infrastructure. Thus, any progress
really has to be driven by people like you with your own hosting
requirements.

Paul