Python Web Application Framework

gameproff

I am in the process of setting up a Python web application to do some geo-locative work. After evaluating the available web frameworks I have tentatively chosen TurboGears 2.0. But I'm still not sure if that is the best option for me.

I have only done PHP web development before this. This is my first Python web application so I was wondering what you all thought about the available frameworks. Any comments or advice from Python developers who have actually used these frameworks would be much appreciated.

Django
Zope
Pylons (plain Pylons which TG uses as well anyway)
and of course
TurboGears.

Also what about things like Google App Engine? Has anyone here used it. How is it? What have you done with it?

Thanks,
GP

Raidation

Google Apps is just basically adding stuff like email, chat, etc... onto your website.
I've used it before, yes.

gameproff

Right thats Google Apps, but I'm talking about their Google App Engine. The nomenclature is a bit confusing. Google App Engine really has nothing to do with Google Apps, its a platform to develop and deploy Python and now Java based applications.

Like I had mentioned in the earlier post, the environment is a bit restrictive but seems to have potential.

Oh and one more to the list of candidates - GearShift. It even runs on GAE. Has anyone used any of these?

chiragpatnaik

leontius

I have also been contemplating about this topic lately. See my post for my thoughts: http://leapon.net/en/state-python-web-frameworks

For GAE I haven't really delved much into it. It's really a platform lock-in where your applications can only run on Google servers and not anywhere else (Google will charge you once your website is big enough).

gameproff

Just a quick update. I have finally rolled out a very minimal application on GAE. I will provide a link once its actually working.

Here is what I chose:

I finally went with Google's own webapp framework instead of the installed Django. Django seemed too big. The webapp framework extends WebOb, so it basically gives you a very minimal web application framework on which you can build whatever you need.

The big thing about using GAE though is simply the fact that you cannot use a SQL based engine. The back-end database or persistence uses Googles own BigTable, which is a key-store.

This is what took me a long time and a lot of research to figure out if this was worth while or not. I will post a more detailed note in my blog about this, but I decided to use the Google Bigtable approach. Quite simply in the long term I see this model of data-based web application development being the way forward.

@leonitus: Thats an interesting post. A few more that I came across, that aren't as well documented or known. repoze - i still want to see what all this one can do. web.py. I also came across one called web2py which seemed kind of interesting, but the fact that the author of it was charging for the download of the manual cheezed me off. About the cost, I figure it will take a while for me to start hitting up on the limits that GAE has. If I do get to that point, hopefully I will also figure out how to make the site self-sustaining Smile

albuferque

If you are into python and GIS then you must check out GeoDjango. GeoDjango is described as "a world-class geographic web framework. Its goal is to make it as easy as possible to build GIS web applications and harness the power of spatially enabled data."

There is an IRC channel is available for discussion on all things GeoDjango -- join #geodjango on freenode.

GeoDjango was featured in a presentation and tutorial session at O'Reilly's Where 2.0 Conference , May 12-14, 2008 in Burlingame, California.

http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/GeoDjango

gameproff

hi albuferque,
thanks for the information on GeoDjango. It looks interesting. I have played around with TileCache and Mapfish on TG, similar kinds of applications for the TurboGears frameworks. But all of them are dependent on compiled C extensions. Something which will be difficult to do on hosts like this one. I'm hoping to come across one that works with pure python code.

Of course the downside is, it probably will not perform very well.

arun

Buba_vv

Did you try web.py framework? It's rather simple and similar to google app engine, but have wider feature set

Poll-Which language is better for web application?
Restarting a Server from a Web Application
Google Launched New Free Web Application
A Simple Python Dynamic Page
Python

I find python is still not as popular as perl
The IDEAL Website... of the future
pylons on frihost
Tutorial: PHP Installed Modules Dynamic Reference Tool
Professional JavaScript For Web Developers

Ruby on Rails -- great Web development framework
Python via CGI - A personal triumph
Python via CGI - A personal triumph
Scripting Language
php Frameworks, or PHP CMS ?!