django vs zope vs web2py

A

Alok Singh Mahor

Hi everyone,
few months back I decided to adopt python for my all sort of work including web progra
 
A

Alok Singh Mahor

I am sorry by mistake I sent incomplete mail here is my mail.

Hi everyone,
few months back I decided to adopt python for my all sort of work includingweb programming. and I have wasted long time deciding which to adopt out of django, zope and web2py.
I am from php and drupal background. which framework would be better for me.. I am open to learn anything, anything new. but I want to adopt best thingfull of features and lot of plugins/extensions and easy to use and have better documentation and books etc.

please suggest me so without wasting more time I can start learning
thanks in advance :)
 
R

rusi

I am sorry by mistake I sent incomplete mail here is my mail.

Hi everyone,
few months back I decided to adopt python for my all sort of work including web programming. and I have wasted long time deciding which to adopt outof django, zope and web2py.
I am from php and drupal background. which framework would be better for me. I am open to learn anything, anything new. but I want to adopt best thing full of features and lot of plugins/extensions and easy to use and have better documentation and books etc.

please suggest me so without wasting more time I can start learning
thanks in advance :)

I am not the best person to advise on this area (hopefully others with
more python-for-web knowledge will speak up)
I see some implicit misconceptions/contradictions in your question so
just saying something…

Python is a general purpose programming language.
php has some (poor?) pretensions to that title.
Drupal cannot even pretend I guess.

Therefore when switching to something like python its important to
have high on your TODO list the need to grok what 'general purpose
programming language' means.
Many people use mega-frameworks like RoR, Django etc without really
knowing much of the underlying programming language. This has some
consequences:
a. You function suboptimally, basically following the cookie-cutter
approach
b. When you have to switch out of Django into python (say) it can be
very unnerving and frustrating because you suddenly find you dont know
the 'ABC'

So the longer but more fruitful in the long-run approach is to
identify what are the general areas that web programming needs, study
these in isolation and then switch to a mega-framework like django.
Something like:

- templating with cheetah
- ORM with sqlalchemy connecting to some proper database
- web-serving with cherrypy (web.py?, bottle? flask?)

[I am not claiming that this list is complete or the examples are
good. Of the above Ive only used cheetah]

After your hands are a little dirty with the plumbing, you can switch
to a mega-framework like django.

Also for someone who has mostly web experience, its good to put aside
web (for a while) and try out python for something completely un-web-
ish (a game? a sysadmin script?) to get a feel for 'general purpose
programming language'
 
R

Roy Smith

Alok Singh Mahor said:
I am sorry by mistake I sent incomplete mail here is my mail.

Hi everyone,
few months back I decided to adopt python for my all sort of work including
web programming. and I have wasted long time deciding which to adopt out of
django, zope and web2py.
I am from php and drupal background. which framework would be better for me.
I am open to learn anything, anything new. but I want to adopt best thing
full of features and lot of plugins/extensions and easy to use and have
better documentation and books etc.

Zope is a much older framework, and much lower level than django. It's
almost certainly not what you want.

I'm not familiar with web2py, so I can't comment on that.

Django is sort of the "killer app" these days in the python web world.
That's not to say that it's necessarily the best, but at least it's well
documented, and has a thriving user community of people who can help
you. There's also a lot of add-on software available for it.

The basic things you get from django are:

1) A built-in ORM (Object Relational Mapper) layer. This is the thing
which lets you ignore all the horrible details of how your underlying
database works and just deal with Python objects.

2) A structure for parsing incoming HTTP requests, and calling the right
bit of your code to handle each request.

3) A template language, to simplify the generation of your HTML pages.

There are others besides the three you mentioned. You might want to
start at http://wiki.python.org/moin/WebFrameworks to explore the
possibilities.
 
S

Surya Kasturi

I am sorry by mistake I sent incomplete mail here is my mail.

Hi everyone,
few months back I decided to adopt python for my all sort of work
including web programming. and I have wasted long time deciding which to
adopt out of django, zope and web2py.
I am from php and drupal background. which framework would be better for
me. I am open to learn anything, anything new. but I want to adopt best
thing full of features and lot of plugins/extensions and easy to use and
have better documentation and books etc.

please suggest me so without wasting more time I can start learning
thanks in advance :)

You see, in my experience, if you are trying to find the best before
starting (to learn), probably might never going to start.
I don't know what's your Python experience but Django is a decent option to
start over! To start Django, the documentation is one of the best way to
start over!!

Since, you are already into web dev using php, drupal etc. Unless you are
very particular in starting with Django... I suggest you to take a look
into other areas of Python.

May be Network programming or systems programming or getting around
algorithms - trying to learn some mind blowing algos.. hack around on
network..

Come back and do Django.. you will see a lot of fresh ideas!!
 
M

Modulok

Hi everyone,
few months back I decided to adopt python for my all sort of work including
web programming...

Pick Django or web2py. You'll be happy with either. (I have no experience with
zope.)

They're both full featured do-everything-you-ever-wanted frameworks with great
communities and lots of documentation. You can buy books on either. I'd say
web2py is a little more elegant and easier to get started with. (An admittedly
subjective claim.) Django has a little larger community and has more third
party stuff.

If you just need to "get it done" and don't care about how it happens, they're
both excellent. You'll meet deadlines with either of them. The communities are
smart the docs are great. You can't really go wrong any way you slice it.
There's more third party documentation and books for Django right now but
that's just because Django came out first. Give it another couple years and
there won't be much difference.

Basically, flip a coin and just go with it.



And now for the gritty details approach...

The problem with web frameworks is they are "magic", i.e. things just happen.
It's the price we pay for using a high level abstraction. The higher the
abstraction the more magic there is. Often times magic is good. It saves us
time and money. However depending on your needs, other options are worth
considering.

If you are willing to invest a lot of time not being initially productive but
learn a *ton* in exchange, you can use something like cherrypy. (Don't get me
wrong, I love and often use cherrypy.) It's dirt simple and works. However,
because it's so simple it doesn't do half of what you need for a non-trivial
production site. Result? You'll have to fill in the tool chain gaps with other
modules. This is what web frameworks do for you.

If you go the cherrypy route you'll need to learn other things like like markup
languages and some kind of way to talk to a database. Security is also entirely
in your hands. You'll learn a ton about HTTP, SQL, markup languages, web
security, encryption, etc. You'll be basically re-creating a web framework of
your own brand. Again it's a time spent vs. knowledge gained trade off.

For a template language I really liked wheezy.template but it's a little too
new for me to feel comfortable using it on any big project. It has a very
simple inheritance model, which is refreshing. I hope to use it more in the
future.

I usually use Mako for my templates. By 'template' I mean any template, not
just HTML. I use mako for HTML, documentation, I even use mako to write SQL
templates. The inheritance model of Mako takes a little more mental gymnastics
to wrap your head around than the simpler (read nicer) wheezy.template model,
but it's a more mature code base. (Not as mature as cheetah.) I had only minor
experience with cheetah but found I preferred Mako. It was a matter of taste.
There's nothing wrong with cheetah.

As for database access: sqlalchemy is truly excellent and very flexible. For
most things sqlalchemy is great. However for some projects it may contain too
much magic. (Again we're going deeper.) Sometimes a backend-specific module is
called for, in which case psycopg2 on postgresql is nice. The ability to use
python context managers as transaction blocks is very clean.

In short, how much do you want to learn? Do you prefer a top-down or bottom-up
approach? Gritty details or elegant abstractions?

-Modulok-
 
A

Alok Singh Mahor

Pick Django or web2py. You'll be happy with either. (I have no experience
with
zope.)

They're both full featured do-everything-you-ever-wanted frameworks with
great
communities and lots of documentation. You can buy books on either. I'd say
web2py is a little more elegant and easier to get started with. (An
admittedly
subjective claim.) Django has a little larger community and has more third
party stuff.

If you just need to "get it done" and don't care about how it happens,
they're
both excellent. You'll meet deadlines with either of them. The communities
are
smart the docs are great. You can't really go wrong any way you slice it.
There's more third party documentation and books for Django right now but
that's just because Django came out first. Give it another couple years and
there won't be much difference.

Basically, flip a coin and just go with it.



And now for the gritty details approach...

The problem with web frameworks is they are "magic", i.e. things just
happen.
It's the price we pay for using a high level abstraction. The higher the
abstraction the more magic there is. Often times magic is good. It saves us
time and money. However depending on your needs, other options are worth
considering.

If you are willing to invest a lot of time not being initially productive
but
learn a *ton* in exchange, you can use something like cherrypy. (Don't get
me
wrong, I love and often use cherrypy.) It's dirt simple and works. However,
because it's so simple it doesn't do half of what you need for a
non-trivial
production site. Result? You'll have to fill in the tool chain gaps with
other
modules. This is what web frameworks do for you.

If you go the cherrypy route you'll need to learn other things like like
markup
languages and some kind of way to talk to a database. Security is also
entirely
in your hands. You'll learn a ton about HTTP, SQL, markup languages, web
security, encryption, etc. You'll be basically re-creating a web framework
of
your own brand. Again it's a time spent vs. knowledge gained trade off.

For a template language I really liked wheezy.template but it's a little
too
new for me to feel comfortable using it on any big project. It has a very
simple inheritance model, which is refreshing. I hope to use it more in the
future.

I usually use Mako for my templates. By 'template' I mean any template, not
just HTML. I use mako for HTML, documentation, I even use mako to write SQL
templates. The inheritance model of Mako takes a little more mental
gymnastics
to wrap your head around than the simpler (read nicer) wheezy.template
model,
but it's a more mature code base. (Not as mature as cheetah.) I had only
minor
experience with cheetah but found I preferred Mako. It was a matter of
taste.
There's nothing wrong with cheetah.

As for database access: sqlalchemy is truly excellent and very flexible.
For
most things sqlalchemy is great. However for some projects it may contain
too
much magic. (Again we're going deeper.) Sometimes a backend-specific
module is
called for, in which case psycopg2 on postgresql is nice. The ability to
use
python context managers as transaction blocks is very clean.

In short, how much do you want to learn? Do you prefer a top-down or
bottom-up
approach? Gritty details or elegant abstractions?

-Modulok-
thanks a lot Rusi, Roy Smith, Surya and Modulok
I am sticking to django. In future I will touch web2py also
 

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