Lies in education [was Re: The "loop and a half"]

[Ben Bacarisse]

Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> writes:

> On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 7:32 PM, Thomas Jollans <tjol at tjol.eu> wrote:
>> On 2017-10-12 07:31, Chris Angelico wrote:
>>> On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 12:19 PM, Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet at bsb.me.uk> wrote:
>>>> Provided some early part of the URL is handled by PHP, the rest of the
>>>> URL path is provided to PHP in $_SERVER["PATH_INFO"].
>>>
>>> Is it possible to do that without having ".php" visible in the path?
>>
>> Just like with Python-based frameworks, this requires a few lines of web
>> server configuration.
>>
>> On Apache, you might use mod_wsgi to tell the server how to run the code
>> in one case, and a combination of mod_php and mod_rewrite in the other.
>> If you're using FastCGI with nginx or lighttpd, I believe the
>> configuration would look pretty similar in both cases.
>>
>> Then again, I don't do much web programming any more and generally stay
>> away from PHP, so I may be misremembering.
>
> Normally, with a Python-based framework, you don't need _any_ web
> server configuration. You simply define your URL routing within the
> Python code. The only thing the web server needs to know is where to
> find the web app, and that's sufficiently standard that it can be done
> off-the-shelf; for instance, you push your code to Heroku, and they
> set everything up to pass requests to your app. Not possible with PHP,
> since you need *custom* web server config to manage your rewrite
> rules.

That's at odds with what I've read online which admittedly may be all
junk.  I wanted to try Flask so I installed the Ubuntu packages but then
got stuck on a huge document that suggested I needed to install things
called Nginx and Gunicorn.  You've now mentioned another: Heroku.  I'm
sure the complex instructions I found are not really required -- it was
probably just the usual "this is what I did so this is how it's done"
document, but I'm having trouble finding the simpler way to do it.

Since no web server configuration is needed (I have a working Apache
installation that mirrors, as closely as possible, what my hosting
provider uses) it should be relatively easy.  Can you tell me, or can
you point me to a resource that tells me, where to put the app?  I don't
yet know what "push your code to Heroku" means.

-- 
Ben.