Help with HTTP, Server, CGI

[Ronald Jeffries]

I've been programming with Python for a while now and know my way
around the language fairly well and the libraries just barely. As for
web stuff I can make HTML and simple javascript work, and know next to
nothing about server side stuff.

One use I hope to make of Python is to run my web site. I'm expecting
to have some content files - maybe text, maybe HTML, maybe XML. 

One possibility is that I'll get my ISP to run Zope. Longer term that
could make sense. I'd like to start learning more before I hit my
problem with that big hammer. So this posting solicits advice on how
to proceed with some learning.

My ISP runs IIS. I assume there is a way that he can set up a python
server for me that is running on some port, and that there's a way to
map some dirrectory name into that port, so that references to "pydir"
or something are all handled by my server program. (Is this correct?
What are the right words for saying this?)

I made SimpleHTTPServer work on my PC (Win98) (yeah, I know), and can
see some ways I could enhance it to take a standard page layout file
and merge in content, putting the content text into a pre-defined look
and feel. 

I could just change it so that it injected the text files, suitably
HTML-ized, into the middle of the look and feel HTML. Then, in
principle, when I update the server, I get my ISP to restart it and
run on the new version. That seems likely to give me really slow
turnaround.

I could just run everything out of cgi-bin, and have all my links and
such look like www.XProgramming.com/cgi-bin/pycgi.py?someArguments.

This makes my links look ugly, but it works. (I've already done it, it
was simple enough that even I made it work.)

Probably there are other better options I should be thinking about. If
you have time to advise someone as ignorant as I am, please chip in.
If there are things I should be reading that I haven't found yet (as
far as you can tell by how little I know) please point me at them.

If you live near Ann Arbor and give lessons, drop me an email.

Thanks,



Ronald E Jeffries
http://www.XProgramming.com
http://www.objectmentor.com