frameword vs application server?

[Diez B. Roggisch]

walterbyrd schrieb:
> Can somebody help me understand the difference? Not just where Python
> is concerned, but in general?
> 
> As I understand it, an application server is supposed to be a great
> help in developing apps, because most of the business logic is already
> there. It seems to me that, usually when applications servers are
> discussed, people are talking about Java.

First of all, this is a misconception. An app-server may provide a wide 
range of infrastructure, however this has nothing to do with business 
logic. THat can merely pick parts of that infrastructure to build upon. 
But the distinction to a powerful framework is slim enough.

And it should be (and has been often so) said that especially in the 
java-world, app-servers and the specifications the implement (j2ee) are 
over-engineered and complicated.

> I suppose most popular Python frameworks incorporate an application
> server, but I get the idea that those app servers are not nearly as
> sophisticed as something like JBoss.

The sophistication is a matter of perspective - some of it stems from 
the fact that in java, you need a lot more code to make even pretty 
simple things work. Think of delegation to business objects (session 
beans) that get their respective calls wrapped so that they take place 
inside a transactional context.

Which involves a great deal of design-abstractions, code-generators and 
tons of XML to glue these together.

Or three lines of code in python...


> I am not sure if a Python app server, that works like a Java app
> server would make sense.

As mentioned above - in some aspects, that is not really needed. But if 
you want more of an app-server, have a look at ZOPE, Kamaelia and maybe 
even twisted.

Diez