Home Original page

Pythonic way of web-programming

Andy Robinson andy at reportlab.com
Mon Apr 14 21:30:49 EDT 2003 
>...it might even be possible for such "super-frameworks" to paper over
>the fundamental but desirable differences between the underlying
>frameworks. For example, some people might want a threaded model,
>whilst others might prefer a process-forking model together with
>similarly convenient data sharing semantics.

Hear, hear.

I think it's sad that Python has this slogan "there's only one way
to do it", but that nowhere is this less true than web development.
At Python-UK I opined that this might be holding us back in comparison
to other languages and tools.  Anyone coming into Java or .NET
development gets a very clear feeling of "one way to do it".

We have a bunch of competing frameworks, but if we analyze them
into layers then they compete less, and a more compatible approach
must be possible.

First, let's note the half-a-dozen different templating schemes
available.  DTML, Woven, Quixote, YAPTU, preppy.

Second, it has always seemed to me that there is a very well
understood model of a web app consisting of a controller, Request,
Response and a few other things, handled in very similar ways by Java
servlets, ASP and WebKit.  This is the basic 'dispatch loop'. It would
be wonderful if this could be systematized in something like the 'db
api', with some interfaces defined in the standard Python library.  

Finally, there's a transport mechanism.  Here one could use
CGI, Twisted, Zope, BaseHTTPServer or whatever else.

Wouldn't it be nice if one day we could have some standardized
interfaces, so that one could switch between these without undue pain
and reduce the confusion people must face?

Best Regards,

Andy Robinson
ReportLab Inc.
More information about the Python-list mailing list