[Web-SIG] A more useful command-line wsgiref.simple_server?

[Graham Dumpleton]

On 31 March 2012 14:36, PJ Eby <pje at telecommunity.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 5:12 PM, Graham Dumpleton
> <graham.dumpleton at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Now when doing mod_wsgi, a similar method of loading each file
>>
>> separately with a __name__ based on file system path was used to
>> ensure each was distinct when same file name used in different
>> directories.
>
>
> Why give them a __name__ at all?  Aren't they scripts, rather than modules?
>  ISTM that not having a __name__ would also let things like pickles fail
> faster.  That is, code that expected a module rather than a script would
> break right away.

Because not having a __name__ attribute at all would make:

  if __name__ == '__main__':
     ...

fail straight away and people quite often had that in scripts so they
could run it directly as well with a pure WSGI server.

>> FWIW, in the past when pushing the idea of a WSGI script file being
>> the lowest common denominator, part of the reason I found I couldn't
>> get it accepted is that some people simply didn't understand how in
>> Python to load an arbitrary file by path name and construct a module
>> for it in memory, with magic __name__. They seemed to think that the
>> only way to import a code file was for it to have a .py extension and
>> for the directory to be in sys.path. So, due to ignorance of the
>> solution as to how to do it meant I got a push back from some people.
>
> Who were you trying to get acceptance from?  Web-SIG or Python-Dev?
>  Framework devs or end-users?  Is  there a PEP?

I brought it up on the WEB-SIG. It may have been bad timing amongst
all the other discussions that went around in circles at the time on
the WEB-SIG. Also mentioned it in passing to some WSGI server
developers and other people when discussing web stuff at meet ups or
otherwise.

Graham