[Web-SIG] Possible specs

[Robert Brewer]

Ian Bicking wrote:
> I brainstormed some ideas for wsgiorg specs and added them to the spec
> page, and also copied here.  I offer them here to see if there's
> particular specifications that seem interesting, and might be worth
> pursuing sooner than other ones.
> ...

and Luke Arno replied:

> Could this actually decrease real interop?
> I am worried that things are getting a little inventive
> here. This is how things get heavy. Lets try to stick
> to codifying those things that have a clear common
> right way. Most of these don't meet that, in my
> opinion. Pursuing many of these will lead to endless
> arguments as they are just unproven which means
> we should just let the diversity simmer for a while.
> 
> Sessions *might* be doable.

I absolutely agree. Web development (at least in Python) is moving *way* too fast for this to be a good time to introduce lots of specifications.

Sessions have 1) been around forever, 2) have consistently been done similarly for each implementation, and 3) already require interoperation with third party code (database APIs), so introducing a common interface would not introduce any overhead. Therefore, session handling would be the only candidate I see for standardization.

All the other proposals seem like ways to work around the weaknesses of WSGI by promoting lowest-common denominator agreements, and, since most consumers of WSGI have by now already worked around those weaknesses in ways that natively fit their code, any specification at this point would only introduce interface overhead into those codebases. The last thing I, as a framework dev, want to provide/require of my users is yet another point of composition. Let's standardize those points which already _require_ composition (like sessions), and worry about those points which merely _allow_ composition at a later date.


Robert Brewer
System Architect
Amor Ministries
fumanchu at amor.org
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