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Recommended python library/framework for local web app?
I am looking for a lightweight framework/webserver that will make it easy to develop web interfaces for some demon processes or some application that should have ideally be an desktop application.
Some examples
To organize photo/music collections, move between folders, edit meta data of those etc,
A simple to-do list/ Money manager/ Documents manager etc,
A log/textFile viewer
A page showing the status of my git repositories
I prefer server side to be python. I don't want to run a full webserver like apache. As this is going to be used similar to a desktop app, I dont need any security features that will prevent me from accessing file system or running any shell commands or accessing internet etc.,
Any suggestions?
Check bottle.py
Most frameworks will have built-in development servers, so you can still use django or some other. But if you are looking for something lightweight to do some quick project, bottle.py can be great
Werkzeug is a good choice. It's a web toolkit more than a web framework. It's very mature, and is the basis of Flask, a popular microframework.
I've developed a website using vanilla Werkzeug and it was really intuitive. It has an explicit feel to it. None of the RoR-style autoload-controller and folder logic, just a bunch of classes and modules that are really well-documented and useful.
As well as cherry.py is a lightweight framework with full server.
http://www.cherrypy.org/
CherryPy allows developers to build web applications in much
the same way they would build any other object-oriented Python
program. This results in smaller source code developed in less time.
Any Python web microframework running on any wsgi compliant Python lightweight web server will do. There are already questions on both here.
I don’t want to burden you all with the details, but basically I’m a 2nd year compsci student with no Web dev experience.
Basically I want to create a small “web app” that takes in input from a html form, have a python script perform some calculations, and re-display those results in your browser.
As of right now, I have the form and script built. However, when I try to test the form, instead of running the script, my browser tries to download it. To my understanding, this is a cgi script problem, and that I must create a web server in order to test this script.
And heres were I’m stuck. I know little to nothing about web servers and how to set them up. On top of that I’ve heard that GCI scripting is a thing of the past, and requires major overhead in order to run properly.
This leads to my questions. How do I go about completing my app and testing my cgi script? Do I install apache and mess around with it or should I be looking into something like google app engine? Are there other ways to complete this task without cgi scripts? Where do frameworks like Django fit into this?
Django, while being nice, all-encompassing and well-supported, is sometimes too much for a small web application. Django wants you to play by its rules from the beginning, you'll have to avoid things like the database and admin panels if you don't need them. It's also easier, with Django, to follow its project layout, even when it's too complex for a simple app.
The so-called micro frameworks might suit you better for your small app. They are built upon the opposite principle: use the bare minimum of features now, add more as you need them.
Flask is based on Werkzeug WSGI library and Jinja2 templating (the latter is switchable), is extensively documented (with notes concerning virtualenv and stuff) and well-suited for small and larger apps alike. It comes bundled with an auto-reloading dev server (no need for Apache on your dev machine) and Werkzeug-powered interactive debugger. There are extensions for things like HTML forms and database ORM.
Bottle is as small as a microframework can get, consisting of 1 (one) file, dev server included. Drop it into your project folder and start hacking. The built-in SimpleTemplate templating engine is switchable, but the dev server is flakier in comparison to Flask's. The documentation is less complete, and, in my opinion, the whole thing is less polished and convenient as Flask.
In both cases, you use dev server locally, and then deploy using WSGI, the server interface for Python web apps which both frameworks support. There are many ways to deploy a WSGI app, Apache mod_wsgi being one of the popular ones.
I'd totally go with Flask unless one dependency (Bottle) is better than three (Flask, Jinja2 and Werkzeug).
(There are many other frameworks as well, so wait for their users to come and tell about them. I'd suggest to avoid web.py: it works, but is full of magic, and is inelegant compared to Flask or Bottle.)
One way of getting to working webapp quickly is by first understanding, and then modifying, something like the App Engine "guestbook" example. This has the benefit that much of the otherwise necessary tedium of running a web server and setting up a database server (assuming you need persistence) is done for you. App Engine also provides a fairly flexible development environment. It's certainly not the only way to go, and I'll admit to bias in recommending it, but it's fairly low friction.
GCI scripting is hardly a thing of the past, though it's not what the cool kids are doing. CGI has the benefit, and the curse, of exposing more of the raw plumbing. It forces you to understand a lot about primitive (in the low-level sense) web architecture, but it's also a bit of a large bite to chew on if you have an immediate problem to solve that can solved by simpler means.
It appears most python web development seems to be done by frameworks these days. There are a couple reasons for this:
a plethora of mature tools. Django has built in user auth, built in database management, built in sessions, built in just about everything ORM which lets you seamlessly supports a couple databases.
Built in webservers. The larger python frameworks like django and pylons have built in webservers. Django has a very simple webserver python manage.py startserver (that simple) That makes it extremely easy to create and debug applications. It is single threaded so dropping a debugger into it is painless
Huge communities. If you have a django question it will be answered very quickly the so community is huge.
The django tutorial will introduce you to all the major aspects of development. It is only 4 pages and you will be able to get your app going a lot simpler than having to read, learn and fiddle with an apache setup.
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/
Although django for right now might be overkill if your app is just going to be 1 form and a script to process it. Because of its seamless testing framework it is quite easy to grow any project. I have never used flask or bottle or the other microframeworks, but I would keep in mind where your project will be in the future.
As for where django fits into this, it is a full stack framework encompassing presentation (templates), data management (server orm), authentication, middleware, forms ... everything necessary to create a completely inclusive web application. Django and almost all other python frameworks implement the wsgi standard. It is an interface that allows for interoperation between webservers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Server_Gateway_Interface it is pretty dry and you will never have to interface it directly. That is what these frameworks do under the hood.
Why setup and maintain your own webserver if you can use app engine. It has an excellent SDK for testing your code. Here is an example https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/gettingstarted/handlingforms
And Django you will find here : https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/gettingstarted/templates
I prefer to use Jinja for templating.
Django comes with its own server, but in your case i would recommend apache and mod_python since it seems to be a rather simple site you're building.
Setting up Apache is a breeze and a simple search on the web should give you all you need.
You can find more information on mod_python here read up a little bit on it and then google after a tutorial that fits your needs.
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I need to create a simple website, the server is gonna running on Amazon EC2 web service. But I haven't done web development before. It seems like I need to learn a lot of stuff, javascript, html, css, web framework, WSGI, apache web server, etc. And I am confused by some stuff that seems much the same.
So first question, Can anyone tell me what exactly do I need to set the website up. Is a web framework the only thing I need on the server side?
2th question, I am gonna use python on server side, there are really a bunch of web frameworks for python. What's the difference between apache http server and the built-in wsgi or http web servers in those web frameworks.
3th question, Is WSGI the best choice? Most web frameworks support WSGI, does it mean WSGI is built in the web frameworks? Or I need to include mod_wsgi or something alike.
Also, according to this benchmark of python WSGI servers, gevent and mod_wsgi show great performance with low memory footprint. They don't claim themselves as web frameworks, what's the difference between them and the web frameworks like cherrypy, web2py.
Thanks
Depends on your website - if you only need static content, you can use static site generators (Blogofile, Hyde to name a few written in Python) or, if your website serves dynamic content, you should use some kind of framework (Flask, Django, etc). With static site generators all you need on the server is the webserver that serves your content, but with dynamic sites you might need extra libraries for various things like database support, caching, etc.
The built-in webservers are usually meant for local development and are generally not suitable for production use. For latter use the specific apps like mod_wsgi (for Apache) or uwsgi (for Nginx) instead. But try to avoid mod_python!
WSGI stands for Web Server Gateway Interface and is a standard protocol used between web server and web application (or framework). WSGI seems to be currently the only standard choice, so go with it.
Also, according to this benchmark of python WSGI servers, gevent and
mod_wsgi show great performance with low memory footprint. They don't
claim themselves as web frameworks, what's the difference between them
and the web frameworks like cherrypy, web2py.
As said before, WSGI is just a way that web server talks with web application. CherryPy and web2py deal with templating, request and session handling and output this information via WSGI to the web server.
And if you worry about the speed, then don't worry about it too much.. :)
WSGI is an interface. It requires a container (e.g. mod_wsgi), an application (e.g. Django), and optional middleware. Applications can be built directly against WSGI, or they can be built on top of frameworks such as Django that handle the WSGI bit for you.
Don't use the built-in web server in the frameworks. They aren't usually designed for performance, and they usually don't integrate well with the non-WSGI parts of your server.
You will need the web server, Apache is one popular choice. You will probably also need to install Database, MySQL is free, easy and popular.
The most popular (and best in my opinion) python framework is Django.
Many run Django with apache using mod_wsgi. Frameworks usually only provide development server that is not suitable to be a real server.
The WSGI servers probably only offer request handling and entry points for writing the code, but frameworks offer much more (user handling, admin interface, ORM, templating, etc...).
This isn't exactly a programming question, since you're really just asking how to get started with web development, and there is no clear answer to this.
I can warmly recommend getting started with Django, simply because it is very well documented and has great tutorials. It also uses Python which means it is easier to understand other people's code.
Regardless of whether you choose Django or something else, just choose a web application development tutorial and run through it. Google for one (for Django you can ask on the very helpful #django IRC channel). That should give you a good basis with at least one working example which you understand, as well as a clear picture of what the different pieces of a running web application are and how they work together.
Afterwards you can branch off and learn many various relevant skills and technologies, preferably driven by your needs as you develop an actual web application of your own (even if just for learning purposes at first).
Good luck!
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Python noob here: On a Python enabled web server, how do I use Python?
I want give web development using Python a shot, but I'm failing hard. I don't even know if I CAN run Python. The webpage for my web host says it supports all kinds of stuff, including Python. I've never touched anything CGI related and this does not appear to be a noob friendly area.
Below is all the information I could think of that might be useful:
Shared host: Yes
Webhost: dibbsonhosting.com
Server OS: linux
Python installed: Yes (or so says the webhost)
mod_python installed: Don't Know
WSGI installed: Don't Know
Access to http.conf: No
Terminal access: No
Cpanel: Yes
FTP: Yes
Django: downloaded latest stable release, not uploaded anywhere, not
sure where to put it.
DB: MySQL 5.x
I really want to use Python for web development! Thanks!
Alright, I'm not going to hold your hand, but let me suggest:
Start off by installing and running it on your own computer, if at all possible. This lets you see what you can do with Python before you have to worry about the complexities of setting it up with a webserver.
If you've never used Python before, then before you start trying to use it for web development, take a few minutes getting the feel of it: what function definitions look like, the abilities of slicing, the neatest way to do loops, and so on. There are various good tutorials available: Dive into Python claims to be aimed at people with experience programming in other languages.
Start learning with a microframework, rather than Django. When you want to do serious websites, you can take advantage of the power of Django, but for now, keep it straightforward. As was suggested in your other question, Flask and Bottle are good contenders.
MALON,
Django has a builtin development server; try it on your local machine first.
The Django tutorial seems to assume that you are running some Unix flavor (like Linux) on your local machine (a Mac would be fine too). If you are running some MS Windows, this page may help. Don't be scared of the command line, setup is only once.
The Django admin app is worth the trouble!
Indeed PHP is synonimous of cheap hosting and very well supported. Write some crap and run. Python support is not as pervasive; at some hosting providers, working with Python is almost as easy as with PHP, and most have instructions about Django in their FAQs.
The mechanics is different: Python frameworks don't reload with each page load like PHP, there is an application always running that responds to HTTP requests. That is why you are advised to start on your local machine, just to acquaint the new paradigm.
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Are there any guidelines to writing Google App Engine Python code that would work without Google's infrastructure on other platforms?
Is there any known attempt to create an open source framework which can run applications designed for Google App Engine on other platforms?
Edit:
To clarify, the question really is:
If I develop an application on Google App Engine now, will I be able to migrate to another platform later, or is it a lock in?
There's a number of components required to make an app fully portable:
The runtime environment itself. This can be ported relatively simply, by setting up a CGI or FastCGI server that emulates the App Engine environment (which itself is basically slightly-enhanced CGI). Most of the code to do this is already in the SDK. Unfortunately, there's no easy pre-packaged toolkit for this yet.
The datastore. By far the most complicated API to port. There are a number of efforts underway: AppScale runs on EC2/Eucalyptus/Xen and uses a HyperTable or HBase backend; it's still very much beta quality and they don't distribute the data connector separately (it's the beginnings of a complete run-your-app-on-your-own-cloud solution). Jens is/was writing an SQLite backend, and there's my own project, BDBDatastore, which uses BDB-JE as the backend, and is fully functional (though beta quality). AppDrop, which others have mentioned, simply uses the development server as a backend, and hence isn't suitable for production use.
The users API needs replacing with something else, such as an OpenID based API. Again, fairly simple, but no premade solutions yet.
The Memcache API needs a backend that uses standard C memcache backends.
The other APIs have perfectly functional backends as part of the SDK, so don't really need porting.
Cron support would also need implementing, as would background processing, XMPP, etc, when they become available.
As you can see, there's a lot of work to be done, but no fundamental barriers to making your App Engine app run outside Google's environment. In fact, if you're interested, you're more than welcome to participate - I and others have plans to combine the solutions for the various pieces into a single 'OpenEngine' solution for hosting your own apps.
Use a high level framework that works on App-Engine. That way you can port your code to other servers when you want.
django has been patched and ported to work in the Appengine patch project and is the most used FW on appengine.
You may want to refer this step by step intro to running a django app on App engine
As far as the parallel infrastructure to run an app engine application is concerned, it is still way far. App Engine itself hasn't got as popular as people believed it to and google wanted it to be. Plus it is harder to develop on the builtin WebApp framework than on django.
Its quite unlikely to see a parallel infrastructure to run app engine application on, atleast for years to come. Rather it is likely to see django and other popular frameworks work out of the box on app engine and the work on this is currently underway in the referred project.
You can build AppEngine applications using the Django python framework (although the supported version is a bit behind the most recent Django release). Where you lose portability (at least right now) is when using GQL/BigTable for persistence. This is Google proprietary database platform. As Hank mentioned this is one of the biggest reasons to actually use AppEngine, but it is also the single largest locking point.
Here are a couple of links to Django support in AppEngine and GQL/BigTable:
http://code.google.com/appengine/articles/django.html
http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/datastore/gqlreference.html
So far, I found an experimental host called app-drop which is capable of hosting google app-engine projects. This should mean that it's atleast possible to run app engine projects outside of google's infrastructure.
This is however clearly not yet suitable for production.
The code should be mostly portable (they do a pretty good job of indicating which modules you can't use on AppEngine and which AppEngine-specific code corresponds to which forbidden modules), but the whole point of AppEngine is to get access to Google's infrastructure. There's not much point to writing your code to the AppEngine restrictions if you aren't going to be using their infrastructure.
AppDrop is a proof of concept port of AppEngine to Amazon Web Services / Elastic Computing completed in April of 2008. It uses a flat file instead of BigTable and runs in a single instance, so there are scaling issues; but it's developer says it took him only four days, and perhaps these limitations can be addressed by others.
I did the reverse migration from vanilla Unix to app engine recently very easily by using WHIFF resources. Basically configure anything platform dependant as a resource and then swap/replace the resources on different configurations.
http://piopio.appspot.com/W1000_1000.resources
also see
http://aaron.oirt.rutgers.edu/myapp/docs/W1100_1200.wwiki
for a detailed example of resource swapping/configuration.
(note: links may go away eventually, app is experimental.)
Check out typhoonae. it's in beta, but quite usable – we moved one of our apps to inhouse server running this stack.
AppScale is the most mature open source implementation of Google App Engine. It's been in development since 2008 and currently support all four languages: Python, Java, Go, and PHP. It has users running their application in production today.
The FAQ explains what APIs are supported and what is lacking:
https://github.com/AppScale/appscale/wiki/FAQs
(Disclaimer: I work on the project)