5 ms·

Ask YC: What is your take on web2py?

11 points by aitoehigie 19y ago

i am new to web2py and i must confess that i have fallen in love with it. if you have used the framework before, what is your take on it?

ivank 19y ago
Have you looked at the source code? web2py is a bad joke with a lot of marketing. Then again, the author isn't really into the Python style - just its userbase. Look at Django if you want a full stack or Werkzeug if you want to roll your own; the latter can easily emulate the style of web.py or Pylons (in fact the trunk comes with these examples).
- aitoehigie 19y ago
  I beg to disagree, web2py is quite good, at least in my own impression much better that webpy, at least when looking at it from the angle of code documentation and cohesion.
  - mdipierro 19y ago
    Thank you aitoehigie. :-)
- mdipierro 19y ago
  Are you still upset with web2py because I did not include your package. Com'on. Grow up. web2py is a project grown in a university, it is all but marketing. Unless free good documentation is called marketing. Here is the latest draft manual: http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/examples/static/web2py_manual.pdf http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/examples/static/web2py_manual.pdf Here is a preliminary comparison with other frameworks: http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/examples/static/web2py_vs_others.pdf http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/examples/static/web2py_vs_others.p... (please correct me if I am wrong)
  - webology 19y ago
    I'm not sure about the other frameworks listed but I did notice the following related to Django: - Django's caching supports ram, disk, database, and memcache as well. - Migrations are supported in Django via the 3rd party django_evolution to name one of a few. - Django trunk also has simplejson included. - For documentation there are the online docs, the djangobook.com website, three published books as of today, and at least a few other books coming out in the next few months. My point just being that there is more then just one book.
    - mdipierro 19y ago
      I just made many corrections. I could find only 2 published books. please send me a personal email if you have other corrections and they will be incorporated.
      - webology 19y ago
        It also might be worth pointing out the community size based on the frameworks. By looking at their respective IRC channels and/or Google Group sizes you can get a rough estimate how big each of their communities are. Overall, I've found any / all python web framework communities to be extremely helpful and friendly. I say that not to take away from the non-python frameworks because I don't have experience with them. I couldn't easily find your email so here is a list instead. These books are out right now: The Definitive Guide to Django: Web Development Done Right: http://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Guide-Django-Development-Right/dp/1590597257/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209412044&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Guide-Django-Development-Ri... Sams Teach Yourself Django in 24 Hours: http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Django-Hours/dp/067232959X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209412044&sr=8-5 http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Django-Hours/dp/06... Professional Python Frameworks: Web 2.0 Programming with Django and Turbogears: http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Python-Frameworks-Programming-Turbogears/dp/0470138092/ref=pd_bbs_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209412044&sr=8-12 http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Python-Frameworks-Program... Here are two coming out later in the year: Practical Django Projects (June or July 2008): http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Django-Projects-Pratical/dp/1590599969/ref=pd_bbs_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209412044&sr=8-4 http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Django-Projects-Pratical/dp/... Python Web Development with Django (Sep 2008): http://www.amazon.com/Python-Development-Django-Developers-Library/dp/0132356139/ref=pd_bbs_sr_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209412044&sr=8-8 http://www.amazon.com/Python-Development-Django-Developers-L...
        mdipierro 19y ago
        I updated the document and listed 3. When the other two come out I will update it again. Thanks.
  - ivank 19y ago
    I don't develop any sort of web framework or toolkit, so I have no idea which package you mean. I just don't see web2py being extracted from a large successful project, which I think is a partial recipe for success. I'm especially confused, because it's an "enterprise framework", but grown in a university. We already have a full stack web framework with an insane amount of documentation - Django, and I would bet my money on its continued evolution and 1.0 release. If anyone is on the fence, look at the web2py/gluon source code and ask if that's the sort of full stack you see being maintained by a community.
    - mdipierro 19y ago
      "enterprise" does not mean it is developed by an enterprise. It means it was developed for the enterprise. For one thing it means it is stable and always backward compatible. It also means it packages everything you need including support for xmlrpc web services, file streaming, if_modified_since, partial content, distributed transactions, ticketing system, etc.
- ardit33 19y ago
  ivan, have you actually used it yourself? What did you like/dislike about it? Can you gives us examples? I personally don't like Django that much as it might be an overkill, and I kinda liked web.py, but the documentation is so poor and it misses a lot of features from a proper framework. Maybe web2py is the middle ground, and I will give it a look. Dissmissing something, b/c its source codestyle is not pythonic enough for you, is a pretty shallow argument.
  - ivank 19y ago
    I wasn't advocating web.py - emulating its style was just an example of Werkzeug's flexibility. I recommend Django if it fits your application, or rolling your own stack (Werkzeug) if Django doesn't fit. I haven't used web2py because I don't invest time in things I have zero faith in. Edit: full disclosure: I've written code far worse than this (in some ways). I just don't publicly release it and encourage language newbies to build on it.
    - mdipierro 19y ago
      Can you make any specific point so that it can be addressed or are you just ranting as usual? Who is doing marketing here? Since when computer science is about faith?
      - ivank 19y ago
        http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SoftwareDevelopmentIsGambling http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SoftwareDevelopmentIsGambling I won't focus on the rest, the reader can judge. Though, I think PEP8 is usually a good start, no matter what the code does.
        mdipierro 19y ago
        Being a professor who teaches the stuff for a living and grades other people's work, you remind me of that typical PhD student that knows enough to talk about his work but nothing enough in detail to ever graduate. No offense. Let me add that in life is the new things that give you an edge, not those things that everybody knows.
inklesspen 19y ago
Web2py is a joke. The guy wrote his own ORM, rather than working with the best-of-breed Python ORM SQLAlchemy, and he touts this as a feature. He was also quick to point out that Web2py won a rumble, but fails to mention that this was because none of the other Python frameworks had even heard of it. If you want a good Python framework that doesn't unduly dictate your app structure, go to Pylons.
- mdipierro 19y ago
  The Flourish conference was sponsored by Google. The creators of Django, CackePHP and Rails were on the mailing list and some even replied to it. I agree that if nobody else participated it is not a victory. I would not say web2py won, I would say web2py was not afraid to participate and delivered a working project in 24 hours that met the specs. The organizers said web2py won. Ask the organizers. Ian Biking was on the jury.
  - inklesspen 19y ago
    You did in fact say web2py won: "web2py is the only framework that participated to the www.flourishconf.com rumble (develop a web app in 24 hours) and won because all the other frameworks chickened out." http://spyced.blogspot.com/2008/04/m-half-baked-thoughts-on-python-web.html?showComment=1207575720000#c7863386267780636294 http://spyced.blogspot.com/2008/04/m-half-baked-thoughts-on-...
    - mdipierro 19y ago
      Three other people came to pick up the rules and some more were on the mailing list, were supposed to and didn't. I spent 24 hours coding and felt like a fool when nobody else delivered. You are taking a quote I made to my users' group out of context. Why do you turn a discussion about some work of mine into a personal thing?
      - inklesspen 19y ago
        No, I'm taking a quote you posted on someone else's blog in an attempt to promote web2py. I'm not turning this into a personal thing; you are.
nuggien 19y ago
got a 503 when trying to access http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/ http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/
fredcy 19y ago
I've been experimenting with web2py over the last week and I like it. Simple web apps are easy to create with very little work. I'm not keen on through-the-web code development but that's not essential to web2py -- everything can be edited directly as simple files. The code of the 'gluon' library seems fine to me. It's a very compact style of coding that (IMO) could use a few more comments, but it's at least as good as what I've seen in Zope and Plone. (Of course, web2py has not been around long enough to accumulate the kind of cruft that happens in more aged software). The documentation is pretty good, particularly in its examples and tutorials. The new "manual" is good. The one thing is miss is an API manual such as can be found for the PHP and Python libraries.
BackSeat 19y ago
I've tried Django and web.py in the past, and given up with both. web2py works, is nicely implemented and the documentation is starting to take shape. Good support on the mailing list too.
g-man 18y ago
web2py 'gets it' about developing web apps! Massimo has boiled down the essence of what a web app needs to do (MVC, REST), and has delivered it in a clean, simple package, which is just what I would expect from a Computer Science professor. The new Google appengine Bigtable datastore makes any SQL-based ORMs moot now anyway, so all we really need to worry about are the business logic and presentation, both of which web2py excels at. Yes, you can still use Textmate if you want, but the cool thing about web2py is you never need to leave the browser IDE. Also, the framework itself is so compact you can carry everything around in a few megs of a USB thumb drive, so now you have a truly portable cross-platform package you can use to develop wherever you are! So just get involved, and let's lead the way into the cloud... I see a huge need for that kind of leadership over at the appengine; this is a chance to make a real difference and shape the future, folks.

11 points by aitoehigie 19y ago

i am new to web2py and i must confess that i have fallen in love with it. if you have used the framework before, what is your take on it?

ivank 19y ago

Have you looked at the source code? web2py is a bad joke with a lot of marketing. Then again, the author isn't really into the Python style - just its userbase. Look at Django if you want a full stack or Werkzeug if you want to roll your own; the latter can easily emulate the style of web.py or Pylons (in fact the trunk comes with these examples).

aitoehigie 19y ago
I beg to disagree, web2py is quite good, at least in my own impression much better that webpy, at least when looking at it from the angle of code documentation and cohesion.
- mdipierro 19y ago
  Thank you aitoehigie. :-)
mdipierro 19y ago
Are you still upset with web2py because I did not include your package. Com'on. Grow up. web2py is a project grown in a university, it is all but marketing. Unless free good documentation is called marketing. Here is the latest draft manual: http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/examples/static/web2py_manual.pdf http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/examples/static/web2py_manual.pdf Here is a preliminary comparison with other frameworks: http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/examples/static/web2py_vs_others.pdf http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/examples/static/web2py_vs_others.p... (please correct me if I am wrong)
- webology 19y ago
  I'm not sure about the other frameworks listed but I did notice the following related to Django: - Django's caching supports ram, disk, database, and memcache as well. - Migrations are supported in Django via the 3rd party django_evolution to name one of a few. - Django trunk also has simplejson included. - For documentation there are the online docs, the djangobook.com website, three published books as of today, and at least a few other books coming out in the next few months. My point just being that there is more then just one book.
  - mdipierro 19y ago
    I just made many corrections. I could find only 2 published books. please send me a personal email if you have other corrections and they will be incorporated.
    - webology 19y ago
      It also might be worth pointing out the community size based on the frameworks. By looking at their respective IRC channels and/or Google Group sizes you can get a rough estimate how big each of their communities are. Overall, I've found any / all python web framework communities to be extremely helpful and friendly. I say that not to take away from the non-python frameworks because I don't have experience with them. I couldn't easily find your email so here is a list instead. These books are out right now: The Definitive Guide to Django: Web Development Done Right: http://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Guide-Django-Development-Right/dp/1590597257/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209412044&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Guide-Django-Development-Ri... Sams Teach Yourself Django in 24 Hours: http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Django-Hours/dp/067232959X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209412044&sr=8-5 http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Django-Hours/dp/06... Professional Python Frameworks: Web 2.0 Programming with Django and Turbogears: http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Python-Frameworks-Programming-Turbogears/dp/0470138092/ref=pd_bbs_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209412044&sr=8-12 http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Python-Frameworks-Program... Here are two coming out later in the year: Practical Django Projects (June or July 2008): http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Django-Projects-Pratical/dp/1590599969/ref=pd_bbs_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209412044&sr=8-4 http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Django-Projects-Pratical/dp/... Python Web Development with Django (Sep 2008): http://www.amazon.com/Python-Development-Django-Developers-Library/dp/0132356139/ref=pd_bbs_sr_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209412044&sr=8-8 http://www.amazon.com/Python-Development-Django-Developers-L...
      - mdipierro 19y ago
        I updated the document and listed 3. When the other two come out I will update it again. Thanks.
- ivank 19y ago
  I don't develop any sort of web framework or toolkit, so I have no idea which package you mean. I just don't see web2py being extracted from a large successful project, which I think is a partial recipe for success. I'm especially confused, because it's an "enterprise framework", but grown in a university. We already have a full stack web framework with an insane amount of documentation - Django, and I would bet my money on its continued evolution and 1.0 release. If anyone is on the fence, look at the web2py/gluon source code and ask if that's the sort of full stack you see being maintained by a community.
  - mdipierro 19y ago
    "enterprise" does not mean it is developed by an enterprise. It means it was developed for the enterprise. For one thing it means it is stable and always backward compatible. It also means it packages everything you need including support for xmlrpc web services, file streaming, if_modified_since, partial content, distributed transactions, ticketing system, etc.
ardit33 19y ago
ivan, have you actually used it yourself? What did you like/dislike about it? Can you gives us examples? I personally don't like Django that much as it might be an overkill, and I kinda liked web.py, but the documentation is so poor and it misses a lot of features from a proper framework. Maybe web2py is the middle ground, and I will give it a look. Dissmissing something, b/c its source codestyle is not pythonic enough for you, is a pretty shallow argument.
- ivank 19y ago
  I wasn't advocating web.py - emulating its style was just an example of Werkzeug's flexibility. I recommend Django if it fits your application, or rolling your own stack (Werkzeug) if Django doesn't fit. I haven't used web2py because I don't invest time in things I have zero faith in. Edit: full disclosure: I've written code far worse than this (in some ways). I just don't publicly release it and encourage language newbies to build on it.
  - mdipierro 19y ago
    Can you make any specific point so that it can be addressed or are you just ranting as usual? Who is doing marketing here? Since when computer science is about faith?
    - ivank 19y ago
      http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SoftwareDevelopmentIsGambling http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SoftwareDevelopmentIsGambling I won't focus on the rest, the reader can judge. Though, I think PEP8 is usually a good start, no matter what the code does.
      - mdipierro 19y ago
        Being a professor who teaches the stuff for a living and grades other people's work, you remind me of that typical PhD student that knows enough to talk about his work but nothing enough in detail to ever graduate. No offense. Let me add that in life is the new things that give you an edge, not those things that everybody knows.

inklesspen 19y ago

Web2py is a joke. The guy wrote his own ORM, rather than working with the best-of-breed Python ORM SQLAlchemy, and he touts this as a feature. He was also quick to point out that Web2py won a rumble, but fails to mention that this was because none of the other Python frameworks had even heard of it. If you want a good Python framework that doesn't unduly dictate your app structure, go to Pylons.

mdipierro 19y ago
The Flourish conference was sponsored by Google. The creators of Django, CackePHP and Rails were on the mailing list and some even replied to it. I agree that if nobody else participated it is not a victory. I would not say web2py won, I would say web2py was not afraid to participate and delivered a working project in 24 hours that met the specs. The organizers said web2py won. Ask the organizers. Ian Biking was on the jury.
- inklesspen 19y ago
  You did in fact say web2py won: "web2py is the only framework that participated to the www.flourishconf.com rumble (develop a web app in 24 hours) and won because all the other frameworks chickened out." http://spyced.blogspot.com/2008/04/m-half-baked-thoughts-on-python-web.html?showComment=1207575720000#c7863386267780636294 http://spyced.blogspot.com/2008/04/m-half-baked-thoughts-on-...
  - mdipierro 19y ago
    Three other people came to pick up the rules and some more were on the mailing list, were supposed to and didn't. I spent 24 hours coding and felt like a fool when nobody else delivered. You are taking a quote I made to my users' group out of context. Why do you turn a discussion about some work of mine into a personal thing?
    - inklesspen 19y ago
      No, I'm taking a quote you posted on someone else's blog in an attempt to promote web2py. I'm not turning this into a personal thing; you are.

nuggien 19y ago

got a 503 when trying to access http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/ http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/

fredcy 19y ago

I've been experimenting with web2py over the last week and I like it. Simple web apps are easy to create with very little work. I'm not keen on through-the-web code development but that's not essential to web2py -- everything can be edited directly as simple files. The code of the 'gluon' library seems fine to me. It's a very compact style of coding that (IMO) could use a few more comments, but it's at least as good as what I've seen in Zope and Plone. (Of course, web2py has not been around long enough to accumulate the kind of cruft that happens in more aged software). The documentation is pretty good, particularly in its examples and tutorials. The new "manual" is good. The one thing is miss is an API manual such as can be found for the PHP and Python libraries.

BackSeat 19y ago

I've tried Django and web.py in the past, and given up with both. web2py works, is nicely implemented and the documentation is starting to take shape. Good support on the mailing list too.

g-man 18y ago

web2py 'gets it' about developing web apps! Massimo has boiled down the essence of what a web app needs to do (MVC, REST), and has delivered it in a clean, simple package, which is just what I would expect from a Computer Science professor. The new Google appengine Bigtable datastore makes any SQL-based ORMs moot now anyway, so all we really need to worry about are the business logic and presentation, both of which web2py excels at. Yes, you can still use Textmate if you want, but the cool thing about web2py is you never need to leave the browser IDE. Also, the framework itself is so compact you can carry everything around in a few megs of a USB thumb drive, so now you have a truly portable cross-platform package you can use to develop wherever you are! So just get involved, and let's lead the way into the cloud... I see a huge need for that kind of leadership over at the appengine; this is a chance to make a real difference and shape the future, folks.