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Given the size of web2py and the lack of resources and corporate support, do you think it would be advisable to learn web2py as the only web development framework I know. I'm considersing learning Ruby on Rails or web2py for a website I need to create for as a school project.
web2py does have a smaller market share than competitor products but it is also much younger. I have knowledge of at least 13 consulting companies that provide web2py support. Anyway, I do believe web2py is much easier to use than other systems and therefore you will need less support that you may think. Most of the current users get their support via the web2py google group where you can find 29781 messages and almost all questions have been answered within 24 hours by one of the contributors.
Learning is bad. Sherlock Holmes explains:
"You see," he explained, "I consider
that a man's brain originally is like
a little empty attic, and you have to
stock it with such furniture as you
choose. A fool takes in all the lumber
of every sort that he comes across, so
that the knowledge which might be
useful to him gets crowded out, or at
best is jumbled up with a lot of other
things, so that he has a difficulty in
laying his hands upon it. Now the
skilful workman is very careful indeed
as to what he takes into his
brain-attic. He will have nothing but
the tools which may help him in doing
his work, but of these he has a large
assortment, and all in the most
perfect order. It is a mistake to
think that that little room has
elastic walls and can distend to any
extent. Depend upon it there comes a
time when for every addition of
knowledge you forget something that
you knew before. It is of the highest
importance, therefore, not to have
useless facts elbowing out the useful
ones."
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has wasted an inordinate amount of time wading through the many bad and poorly documented Python web frameworks trying to find one I can just use. If I was programming in Ruby or PHP I probably would have spent that time actually writing a web application. This is the curse of web development in Python.
This bit of flamebait may help:
stackoverflow.com tags about web frameworks http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tZCdBPAkC75t27UzsPdLfMg&oid=2&output=image
Omitted from the chart are the 13,000+ questions tagged [php], but let's not go there.
To be clear, even though choosing a framework for Python web development can be confusing, once you decide on one you get to program in Python. This is the blessing of web development in Python. It can be really nice.
My advice is don't accept anything less than a framework with excellent documentation. With the amount of choices out there there's no need to settle for poor, incomplete docs. Failing that, the simplest frameworks, those lacking room for any magic, are pleasant to work with and quickly learnable.
web2py may be young, but the mailing list has ~2000 messages / month, which is similar to Django and far more than Turbogears. I usually get answers to my questions within a few hours.
There is also an excellent online book, but I find the best source of information is the mailing list.
I have used both RoR, Django, Turbogears, and web2py, and find web2py the most productive.
Learning is good.
Learning something (that eventually goes away) is no loss at all. The basic skills of web development (HTML, CSS, URL-parsing, GET vs. POST) don't ever change.
Frameworks come and go. Learn as many as you can. Learn how to manage your learning so that you (a) get to the important stuff first and (b) leave the other framework stuff behind when tackling a new framework.
Every framework has it's bias (or focus). Once you figure this out, you can make use of them without all the "compare and contrast" that slows some people down. Once you've learned web2py, you have to be careful learning Django that you start fresh, with no translation from old concepts to new.
Web2py is a good one to learn. If this is going to be deployed to a server, double check it supports wsgi. Sometimes php is the way to go because you know it's supported almost anywhere.
Ask yourself what you are looking to gain from the experience. Ie, is it more important to just get the application built and running with a minimum of time and effort, or are you trying to learn about web stack architecture?
If you're just looking for results, obviously you'll have more code and documentation to borrow from if you stick with a more commonly used framework. If you grit your teeth and accept Django's view of the world, you can build very functional applications very quickly. If you can find some pre-made reusable Django apps that handle part of your problem, it'll be even faster.
But if you want to make sure you have a very solid understanding of everything in the request cycle from HTTP request handling to database access and abstraction to form generation and processing and HTML templating, you'll be bettered served with a minimal framework that forces you to think more about the architecture and has a small enough codebase that you can just read it all top to bottom and not really need documentation beyond that. In that case though, I'd advise going even deeper and building your own framework on top of a WSGI library (you don't actually want to waste time learning the intricacies of working around browser quirks if you can help it). Once you've built your own and seen where things get complicated and where the tradeoffs are, you'll be in an excellent position to judge other frameworks and decide if there's one that does things the way you want to work.
This may seem slightly off-topic, but Paul Graham has probably the best essay on this subject that I have seen: The Python Paradox.
Let me put it this way, if you want to work for me, I notice this kind of free thinking and experimentation on a resume, whether the work was commercial, academic, or otherwise. And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.
Glad I found this thread! Cause some outdated pages and broken external links on Web2Py's website almost scared me off. But at least now I know there's a pretty good community around Web2Py.
I've just been looking through a load of Python web frameworks, and Web2Py's description sounded enticing and managed to make Django sound overly laborious. Pretty sure there are some tangible benefits to Django's design decisions avoiding "too much magic" when it comes to larger projects.
But to just throw something up on the web with err "sane defaults" sounds perfectly good to me. Instead of throwaway scripts, we can make throwaway websites to handle some temporary thing...
There should be room for an appliance style framework with no installation...
Interesting possibilities for some projects. I saw someone already got a python framework + server to work on android phones :))
For me, thanks to this thread, I will just learn both.
Another thought; if Web2Py is open source and you like what it does you might not even mind being the only user at some point in the future, since you can add features to it yourself?
Mind you, I have not used either yet, just read the docs. I think the Web2Py people should put up a blurb on their website to differentiate themselves from Django in more detail, I haven't been able to check off all my question marks for choosing the right one.
I've already used Java EE and Django. The web2py learning curve is so fast! It's incredible! Things that I was getting a time to develop in three days using java, I can do fastly using web2py. Of course, Web2py has not the same ready plugins that RoR, but, doubtless, we can do these things fastly using web2py. Therefore, is a good opportunity to start learning = )
I'm agree with S.Lott saying that:"Learning something (that eventually goes away) is no loss at all."
YEAH It's true but let me suggest that also a scholastic project should be able to reach the better support possible, otherwise could be very frustrating and a waste of time to learn and teach something not well supported, debugged, stable etc.
The time you spent, and maybe your auditors/students, should in some sense projected with an eye to the future...
just for example take a look to turbogears
Related
After much research, I've come up with a list of what I think might be the best way of putting together a Python based social network/cms, but have some questions about how some of these components fit together.
Before I ask about the particular components, here are some of the key features of the site to be built:
a modern almost desktop-like gui
future ability to host an advanced html5 sub-application (ex.http://www.lucidchart.com)
high scalability both for functionality and user load
user ability to password protect and permission manage content on per item/group basis
typical social network features
ability to build a scaled down mobile version in the future
Here's the list of tools I'm considering using:
Google App Engine
Python
Django
Pinax
Pyjamas
wxPython
And the questions:
Google App Engine -- this is an attempt to cut to the chase as many pieces of the puzzle seem to be in place.
Question: Am I limiting my options with this choice? Example: datastore not being relational? Should I wait
for SQL support under the Business version?
Python -- I considered 'drupal' at first, but in the end decided that being dependent on modules that may or
may not exist tomorrow + limitations of its templating system are a no-no. Learning its API, too, would be useless elsewhere
whereas Python seems like a swiss army knife of languages -- good for almost anything.
Question: v.2.5.2 is required by GAE, but python.org recommends 2.5.5. Which do I install?
Django -- v.0.96 is built into GAE. You seem to be able to upgrade it.
Questions: Any reason not to upgrade to the latest version? Ways to get around the lack of HTML5 support?
Pinax (http://pinaxproject.com) Rides on top of Django and appears to provide most of the social network functionality
anyone would want.
Question: Reasons NOT to use it? Alternatives?
Pyjamas and wxPython -- this is the part that gets a little confusing. The basic idea behind these is the ability
to build a GUI. I've considered Silverlight and Flash, before the GAE/Python route, but a few working versions of
HTML5 apps convinced me that enough of it ALREADY runs on the latest batch of browsers to chose the HTML5/Javascript
route instead.
Question: How do I extend/supplement Python/Django to build an app-like HTML5 interface? Are Pyjamas and wxPython
the way to go? Or should I change my thinking completely?
Answers to some/any of these questions would be of great help. Please excuse my ignorance if any of this doesn't make much sense.
My last venture into web programming was a decent sized LAMP website some 5-6 years ago. On the desktop side of things,
my programming experience boils down to very high level scripting languages that I keep on learning to accomplish very specific
tasks :)
As someone who has deployed a Django site to GAE, I can tell you that you are not going to reach the ideal solution. Django on GAE misses some of the best aspects of Django because the ORM doesn't work right. The best compromise may be to use Django-nonrel to add the features back in.
This introduces it's own problems though: because of the large number of files and memory used by a Django app you're code will be unloaded from memory quickly after the app becomes idle. That means that visitors will frequently hit an approximately 6 second delay on the first page view after the site's code has been unloaded from memory while GAE uncompresses the zipped modules. Once your site is busy this won't be a problem, but while your site is still young and unknown it will cause the appearance of performance problems. :-(
Second, I've also worked for a company that built a custom CMS and can tell you that the first 80% is pretty easy, especially with modern frameworks. However, the rest can be quite challenging. For example, user roles and custom content types are two challenging aspects. Therefore strongly consider standing on the backs of giants and finding a CMS or CMS framework that almost perfectly meets your needs and then extend it to do that extra bit you need.
So, that said, answering your points:
Yes, you're limiting your options but that may be OK. Most developers are more comfortable with the relational model than the nosql model. Therefore more open source software is built with it in mind. Also, GAE is a closed source platform which is also a deterrent to open source developers. App Engine Oil is a CMS framework that may suit you well and is optimized for App Engine. Also look at web2py which has support for GAE.
I've found myself to be extremely productive with Python. I used to write a lot of PHP now I find it ugly. That said, think about the total line count of code you'll have to write. If you can make Drupal work with high quality pre-made modules you may find yourself only needing 1/10th of the code. By the way, the trick with Drupal is to mainly use only high quality modules. Look at the history, make sure not to use development versions. Try to contact the authors on IRC. I'm not saying you should use Drupal but it is possible to have a reliable site with it (for example, whitehouse.gov)
You're in the classic GAE/Django problem. If you use 0.96 you get great performance but you miss a lot of the great 1.0+ features and you don't get the ORM and all of it's benefits. If you use a newer version of Django you get the performance/memory problems mentioned above.
I'm about to investigate pinax for my company. I've done a very cursor glance at it. I don't know if it has good support for non relational model backends. You'll probably need to look at django-nonrel. However know that you're going to be investing in relatively untried solutions here. A small percentage of Django users use Pinax and an even smaller percentage, if any, use it on a nonrelational backend. Therefore you're going to be in the highly experimental scenario you mentioned in point 2 above.
I can't offer personal experience on it. I've investigated pyjamas a few times. However I like writing HTML CSS and JS. I like to have control. I like progressive enhancement and knowing what users will see if they don't have the full capabilities. Also, I think any new app that doesn't explicitly address mobile clients is implicitly shooting themself in the foot. As many as 15% of Internet users only use the Internet via their smart phone. What kind of experience will they get with pyjamas?
You didn't mention this, but one thing I consider when choosing a platform is vendor lockin and portability. If you develop your solution for GAE and find that you're not able to do what you want, will you be able to port it to another solution elsewhere? How much work will it take? If you code heavily for GAE or make commitments to its architecture, you're stuck with it or with rewriting to move. Using Django or Web2py can help mitigate this.
That said, the big benefit of Python GAE is that you get to be very productive, see your results instantly, get hosting for free while your site is small and get excellent scalability. These are not small things. There is great value there.
I have to develop a site which has to accomodate around 2000 users a day and speed is a criterion for it. Moreover, the site is a user oriented one where the user will be able to log in and check his profile, register for specific events he/she wants to participate in. The site is to be hosted on a VPS server.Although I have pretty good experience with python and PHP but I have no idea how to use either of the framework. We have plenty of time to experiment and learn one of the above frameworks.Could you please specify which one would be preferred for such a scenario considering speed, features, and security of the site.
Thanks,
niting
This is a very subjective question but personally I'd recommend Django. Python is a very nice language to use and the Django framework is small, easy to use, well documented and also has a pretty active community.
This choice was made partly because of my dislike for PHP though, so take the recommendation with a pinch of salt.
Most of the frameworks out there nowadays are fast enough to serve whatever needs you will have. It really depends on in which environment you feel most comfortable. Though there are nuances here and there, MVC frameworks share a lot of the same principles, so whichever you choose to use is really a matter of which you most enjoy using.
So, if you like Python more, there's your answer. Use a Python framework, and Django is the best. If you like PHP more (which I personally don't), you've got some more decisions to make. But any of the PHP frameworks are fine. They really are. Just pick one that looks nice with comprehensive documentation and get to work.
I've worked with CakePHP and Django and I really recommend Django. I don't know too much about CodeIgniter, but I remember ruling it out when I was evaluating frameworks myself about a year ago. CakePHP seemed much more developed at the time.
First of all, the Django community is much bigger and has spent a lot of time focusing on reusable apps. This means that you get a lot of functionality for free. Pair this with the django admin, and you have a lot of things already done for you. I haven't kept up with the PHP frameworks much, but I'm pretty sure Django is also more developed.
This is more of a personal thing, but I just like Python over PHP. Compare the way models are done in CakePHP and Django: http://book.cakephp.org/view/67/Understanding-Models, http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/db/models/#topics-db-models. The python is clearly more readable.
Keep in mind that Django gives you an awesome ORM and builds your schema for you, i.e. you never have to touch the database if you don't want to. With the PHP frameworks, you have to do your own db design, which just slows me down at this point. You can always go in and add indexes for speed later.
This is probably the most biased, but if you are starting a new application - seriously - just stick with Django or Ruby on Rails. There is a reason everyone talks about them and they have the biggest communities and best developers behind them.
You can also check out Pinax for a lot of Django goodies.
Codeigniter it's fast and very documented also has a large community to and finaly friendly with the programmer.
CodeIgniter is a great PHP framework that is fast and has excellent documentation. Start reading through their user guide and it will give you a good idea how to work with the framework.
Extending Matchu:
Or, -If you like PHP more- its time to learn/growup about other things like Python. Its not hard to learn, and when you get started it gets very enjoyable.
Many people has done the PHPtoPython/Django port, like Mozilla, Netgeo, Nasa, TheOnion, etc.
If for the PHP part I would choose CodeIgniter - it doesn't get too much into your way. But it doesn't have any code/view/model generators out of the box, you need to type a bit.
But languages other than PHP appear to be more sexy.
I am using CodeIgniter 1.7.2 and for complex websites it's very good and powerfull, but it definitely is missing some kind of code generator which will allow for example to build an IT application in one click.
I had the impression (from watching a tutorial) that Django has it.
So this thread is definitely NOT a thread for why Python is better than Ruby or the inverse. Instead, this thread is for objective criticism on why you would pick one over the other to write a RESTful web API that's going to be used by many different clients, (mobile, web browsers, tablets etc).
Again, don't compare Ruby on Rails vs Django. This isn't a web app that's dependent on high level frameworks such as RoR or Django. I'd just like to hear why someone might choose one over the other to write a RESTful web API that they had to start tomorrow, completely from scratch and reasons they might go from one to another.
For me, syntax and language features are completely superfluous. The both offer an abundant amount of features and certainly both can achieve the same exact end goals. I think if someone flips a coin, it's a good enough reason to use one over the other. I'd just love to see what some of you web service experts who are very passionate about their work respond to why they would use one over the other in a very objective format.
I would say the important thing is that regardless of which you choose, make sure that your choice does not leak through your REST API. It should not matter to the client of your API which you chose.
I know Ruby, don't know python... you can see which way I'm leaning toward, right?
Choose the one you're most familiar with and most likely to get things done with the fastest.
Yeah, flip a coin. The truth is that you're going to find minimalist frameworks in either language. Heroku is a pretty strong reason to say Ruby but there may be other similar hosts for Python. But Heroku makes it stupid easy to deploy your api into the cloud whether it's Rails or some other Ruby project that uses Rack. WSGI doesn't give you this option.
As for as the actually implementation though, I'm guessing that you'll find that they're both completely competent languages and both a joy to program in.
I think they are fairly evenly matched in features. I prefer Python, but I have been using it for over a decade so I freely admit that what follows is totally biased.
IMHO Python is more mature - there are more libraries for it (although Ruby may be catching up), and the included libraries I think are better designed. The language evolution process is more mature too, with each proposed feature discussed in public via the PEPs before the decision is made to include them in a release. I get the impression that development of the Ruby language is much more ad-hoc.
Python is widely used in a lot of areas apart from web development - scientific computing, CGI rendering pipelines, distributed computing, Linux GUI tools etc. Ruby got very little attention before Rails came along, so I get the impression that most Ruby work is focused on web development. That may not be a problem if that is all you want to do with the language, but it does mean that Python has a more diverse user base and a more diverse set of libraries.
Python is faster too.
Ruby + Sinatra
Very easy to use with/as rack middleware - someone's already mentioned heroku
Either will do a great job and you'll gain in other ways from learning something new. Why not spend as couple of days with each? See how far you can get with a simple subset of the problem, then see how you feel. For bonus points report back here and answer your own question!
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I have been working with Ruby on Rails for over a year now and have been offered some development work with Python. I would like know if development with Python is as enjoyable as Ruby in terms of the clarity and ease of use. And how well is Python suited for Web development. I've heard of Pylons being a direct port of the Rails framework but does it provide the same level of comfort and features. Are there any popular websites built using Python and a framework that offers the same level of flexibilty as Rails.
Because Rails doesn't seem like work.
Django is one of the most famous. It follows a different approach to web devlopment then ruby does, but it is just as powerful and feature rich. An example website running Django is lawrence.com
Pylons is another popular one, I don't know why you heard it was a Rails clone, because it is not. It is a lightweight framework that leverages the power of other open-source projects to give you flexibility in implementation. For example, you can choose to use SQLAlchemy, SQLObject or CouchDB for managing your database. Or you can choose between Mako, Genshi, Jinja2, or whatever you like for your templates. I think you get the picture. Some example website running of pylons are: freebase and Charlie Rose
There exist other web framework as well, but they are less popular.
Notably, TurboGears, which is now built upon Pylons. I would say it tries to pack more juice then pylons does, but it also constrain you more as it assumes more decisions for you. Still, you can stay away from them and do as you please, but it starts with a more constrained framework.
The last one I will mention is Zope, which is the big commercially backed one, that has been there for a while now, but I don't have much experience with it. I do believe it is the less "fun" to work with, but that's just my feeling, you can check it out yourself.
All in all, it comes down to your workflow, I personally, do not enjoy Ruby as a language as much as I do Python and it is natural that I thus like to work with python for web development then Ruby. You really need to try them out yourself, at least the first two I mentioned, try to build a small website, just to get a feel for it. All I can say is from my experience, people either like Rails or Python, not both...
Good Luck!
One very good web development framework is Django
The main two frameworks in Python are Pylons (with the coaligned Turbogears framework) and the more popular Django. Django stomps everything for doing content-based sites (CMS etc) because the admin is excellent.
However, your question makes you sound very much enthused with Ruby and I doubt you'll find anything you like as much. It goes both ways: I'm pretty meh on Rails but really like Python and node.js.
I have done a lot of work with Python in the past year, mostly using Django. I enjoy it, and agree with others that it's great for content-heavy sites. Python and all of its frameworks very much follow the mantra of there being one correct way of doing things. I have learned that most of my pain extending Django lies in me approaching a problem wrongly and need to refactor the code. If you are a precise, logically-driven thinker, you'll enjoy Python a lot.
As far as websites that use Python for a code base, the biggest may be reddit and its family of sites. Django's website also lists sites that use it. I haven't had the privilege of using Pylons, but I also hear good things about it.
Clarity and ease of use are some of Pythons biggest selling points. In saying that, the different Python web frameworks cover almost the entire spectrum from small and simple all the way up to large and complex with everything in between.
You should find that most Python web frameworks have less 'magic' than Rails - ie they are a bit more explicit which is arguably better from the clarity point of view.
In my opinion, even if you enjoy Rails and don't ever plan on leaving, you should still try out other languages and frameworks occasionally to give you a broader perspective.
Personally I like Turbogears2, but I think Django would make a good starting point for a Rails developer that wanted to try out something else.
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I am making a community for web-comic artist who will be able to sync their existing website to this site.
However, I am in debate for what CMS I should use: Drupal or Wordpress.
I have heard great things about Drupal, where it is really aimed for Social Networking. I actually got to play a little bit in the back end of Drupal and it seemed quite complicated to me, but I am not going to give up to fully understand how Drupal works.
As for Wordpress, I am very familiar with the Framework. I have the ability to extend it to do what I want, but I am hesitating because I think the framework is not built for communities (I think it may slow down in the future).
I also have a unrelated question as well: Should I go with a Python CMS?
I heard very great things about Python and how much better it is compare to PHP.
Your advice is appreciated.
Difficult decision. Normally I would say 'definitely Drupal' without hesitation, as Drupal was build as a System for community sites from the beginning, whereas Wordpress still shows its heritage as a blogging solution, at least that's what I hear quite often. But then I'm working with Drupal all the time recently and haven't had a closer look at Wordpress for quite a while.
That said, Drupal has grown into a pretty complex system over the years, so there is quite a learning curve for newcomers. Given that you are already familiar with Wordpress, it might be more efficient for you to go with that, provided it can do all that you need.
So I would recommend Drupal, but you should probably get some opinions from people experienced with Wordpress concerning the possibility to turn it into a community site first.
As for the Python vs. PHP CMS question, I'd say that the quality of a CMS is a function of the ability of its developers, the maturity of the system, the surrounding 'ecosystem', etc. and not of the particular language used to build it. (And discussions about the quality of one established language vs. another? Well - let's just not go there ;)
I make websites both using Drupal and Django - sometimes with Pinax (Python). So let me try to set up the differences between Python and PHP, and the different CMS's.
Python - PHP
Pros for Python.
You tend to write more readable code making it easier to maintain. This has a big impact if you are going to do a lot of custom coding, now or in the future. However if you aren't going to make that much custom functionality, this doesn't matters.
Python and Django is buildt on OO, making it easy to reuse code, and is built on the DRY princip.
I find, that python is more intuitive to program in. In many cases it has a less weird / obscure syntax than PHP.
Cons for Python.
PHP is easier to host. More providers will allow you to run PHP and you can generally find PHP hosters a bit more cheaper than python hosters. If you have your own server, this wont matter.
Generally it's easier to code with python in many regards, but this is something that can be overcome simply by using more time with PHP. Also if you don't know python, that means you will have to invest some time learning it, and the things you can do with python. On the other hand it's a bit more difficult to find cheap hosting for Python projects.
Django/Pinax vs Drupal vs Wordpress.
It's always difficult to be able to say, which CMS?CMF to use. Which to choose is dependent on several factors.
How much custom coding are you going to do?
How much customization do you need?
How fine grained control over the system do you want?
Wordpress' strength is it's ease of use, and how you quickly and easily can setup a lot of things. You might be able to get a site like what you want with only a few hours spent. The problem with wordpress however, is when you want to make custom functionality. It doesn't have a strong API like Drupal, and you might have problems changing the output to give you exactly what you want.
Drupal's great strength is it's powerfull API, ability to customize and overwrite anything. In addition to all this, it also has a lot of modules giving you the ability to in many cases build your most/all of your site in a very short time. The problem with Drupal is, that it's not easy to use. You have to spend time learning the system and API before you can take advantage of it. the Drupal AI is also hard to navigate for newcomers, and it takes a while before you learn where the different things are. Drupal is a big machine though, and it can get a bit slow, unless you setup something like Varnish in front of it.
Django is made for rapid development. So once you get into it, which isn't that hard, you can quickly create apps to suite your needs. You have complete control over the urls. The problem with django is that it's not so easy to find the different apps that has been made and figure out which are good. The template system makes it easy to make the markup like you want, but you can't change the functionality of the apps the same way you can with Drupal. One thing to note, is that Pinax doesn't have a 1.0 release yet, while Drupal is on code freeze for it's 7.0 release.
All in all, with all these tools, the biggest challenge is finding out how to use them. If you know wordpress very well and just want to make this one site, you can just use it and be done with it. If however you want to take it further, I would suggest that you use either Django or Drupal. These two has some great development potential.
If you're open to Python, and are building a social / community site, I would check out Pinax for the Django web framework. It provides a lot of common social site features like user accounts, blogging, tagging, friend invites, etc.
Here's an example of a social site built using Pinax.
There's a WordPress extension called BuddyPress that'll give you a ready-to-go social network. If it suits you, it may be an easier solution than a Drupal install. If it doesn't suit you, though, I find Drupal more suited to extending in the long run.
I'd do it Drupal as it's a proven social networking platform and has te ability to be upgraded to do just about anything, from the vast range of modules on offer (read up on cck and views- they basically let you add your own customised page type (cck) and views lets you show data in various different ways, and based on various other parameters.)
I run my own mini social network site in Drupal - Tunstall Communities - Bankeyfields,
Heres a social network/news site using Wordpress, which they've now opted to upgrade to Drupal, as they want more social networking features.
DrupalSN is a social network site designed for showing you how to build Drupal sites, and a lot of the Tutorials on there are focussed on user interaction, so it will be a great resource if you go with Drupal.