[python-advocacy] The python way to write web applications

[Michael Foord]

Tennessee Leeuwenburg wrote:
> I've got a problem. Please, hear me out in case I've got it jumbled. 
> Then feel free to criticize my understanding of things -- I declare 
> Crocker's rules.
>
> There seems to be no Pythonic way to write web applications. There are 
> python web application frameworks, but these stacks still require a 
> lot of javascript expertise. It doesn't look as though I can write a 
> cross-platform RIA with Python, authored from a linux development 
> environment.
>
> I can write flex applications, but apollo isn't ready for linux yet. I 
> can write Moonlight applications, but the authoring process is poorly 
> documented, requires compilation of mozilla from source (!) and isn't 
> up-to-date with respect to Silverlight. If I'm happy to constrain my 
> widget set, I can use some javascript toolkits to hide away the 
> javascript to some extent, but certainly for my purposes, and probably 
> for all purposes, I just know I'll be up to my elboys in javascript in 
> no time.

Silverlight 1.1 is very interesting, but is still ion alpha (comes with 
no prebuilt controls) and not ready for production use yet. Even when it 
is ready, whether it is worth using will depend on uptake. Being able to 
write Python code that runs in the browser is very nice though.

Personally, If I'm writing a Javascript UI I'd rather be writing in 
Javascript than using code generation. Javascript is not bad as a 
language and there are some very nice toolkits out there (I've also had 
good experiences with ExtJS).

Rails does seem to have a better integration with Javascript (for AJAX 
style applications) than Turbogears or Django at the moment though.

All the best,


Michael
http://www.manning.com/foord