D&C GLug - Home Page

[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]

[LUG] Luke warm defence of Python? Web MVC framework I mentioned to Gordon

 

We seemed to be short of people who like/use Python at the Exeter LUG
meeting.

My python to date consisted mostly of sticking options on a tiny program
to thumbnail web pages. Which was easy to pick up and hack, worked well,
and has run pretty seamlessly for millions of thumbnails, but is hardly
serious programming.

Curiously someone else put similar options on the same original program
here in case you need to thumbnail web pages automatically:

http://www.coderholic.com/pywebshot-generate-website-thumbnails-using-python/

And released it back to the wild before I released my variant of the
same script which does basically the same thing.


When reviewing programming frameworks for web development to see what
was around, one that stood out was "Web2Py" http://web2py.com/

It seemed to do everything right for that sort of environment, as well
as including an online IDE/editor, online demo, and proper (but not
perfect) documentation. It was written as a teaching tool, but it isn't
going to be any good for primary schools. Then again anyone familiar
with other MVC frameworks will find it dead easy to pick up.

Afraid I haven't had cause to use it in anger yet, so I can't say how it
feels on day 100 of a project.


But I noted on another site a poll suggesting a lot of people are using
Python for System administration type tasks. Since I can't believe it is
more comprehensive, or more capable, for such a task than Perl, I assume
it is either easier to use, easier to learn, or easier to maintain.


Gordon mentioned Python performance, but a quick sniff around confirms
that Python performance is typical of it's class of languages, and
broadly comparable to Ruby, and Perl. PHP which is slow within it's
class hasn't had it's adoption harmed by being (or a myriad of other
issues one might expect). Maybe Gordon's Basic interpreter is just
quick, I'm assuming RTB provides a nice simple clean Basic like I was
use to in the 1980s and thus probably all fits in the CPU cache, and
doesn't do anything embarrassingly complicated like many modern
languages do.


That of course brings me to the key point, that technical excellence is
no predictor of adoption. The Raspberry PI may be a good example as we
all spent a long time discussing the capabilities of a system whose key
feature is its cheapness, when the camera I took to the meeting is
probably a more powerful computer in many regards (and comes with a lot
more storage!).

-- 
The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG
http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list
FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq