4 ms·

I'd love to hear about your view on which frameworks to use for python (tipfy, webapp, tornado, django ports etc) and their advantages over each other. I've dev

by znt 16y ago

I'd love to hear about your view on which frameworks to use for python (tipfy, webapp, tornado, django ports etc) and their advantages over each other. I've developed a webapp using django-nonrel, it was pretty quick to have it going but I have this uneasy feeling in my gut that something may be wrong.

mmastrac 16y ago
I'm not as strong with GAE/Python as I am with GAE/Java, but my feeling is that your AppEngine experience will be far more productive if you use AppEngine's native Datastore APIs rather than any abstraction layer. There's a lot of detail at the low level that you miss by using any layers of abstraction (on both Python and Java platforms). That detail is important for getting maximum performance out of your application and correctly dealing with AppEngine's unique transaction model. The choice of web frameworks is tougher. Startup time is important right now for AppEngine (although slightly less important with some of the new features rolling down). You'll want to use the lightest-weight framework you can find. On Python, I've had great luck with webapp + Django templates + raw Datastore APIs. On Java, Guice + Guice servlets + raw Datastore API is really lightweight and fast. We've also developed our own Django-like templating system for Java that we hope to open-source at some point. Anyone else with more GAE/Python experience want to chime in?
- adn37 16y ago
  > We've also developed our own Django-like templating system for Java Any chance you could list viable alternatives, please? (I'm considering GAE/Java). Thanks for this interesting thread.
  - mmastrac 16y ago
    I did a study of the bigger templating systems available on Java earlier this year and the landscape wasn't that great: JSP, Freemarker, Velocity and a number of smaller projects. We decided that it was worth some time developing a system inspired by Django's lightweight syntax. If you send me a note (matthew@mastracci.com), I can let you know when we get our project up on github. It's rendering every page on gri.pe right now and has been stable for a few months now.
    - arthur_kalm 16y ago
      Have you looked into Google Sitebricks for templating?
- fletchowns 16y ago
  How about a framework like objectify? Is that close enough to the low level datastore to get good performance?
  - mmastrac 16y ago
    I've heard really good things about it. It's written for GAE and GAE only, so there aren't any abstractions that insulate you from how the datastore works. It's still worth your time to write some code against the raw datastore APIs. It takes some time for entity groups, keys and parents to sink in and working with the raw API helps you see what's going on.
  - RoyceFullerton 16y ago
    I started with the raw datastore API and was able to do what I wanted after quite a bit of research and trial and error. I was then turned on to Objectify and couldn't be happier. I know what is going on underneath and the limitations but I have a much easier way to deal with them. Objectify is highly recommended, but my app doesn't have massive scale so I am not sure if it adversely affects performance much.
- Kilimanjaro 16y ago
  Webapp, webapp templates (just like django) and datastore. I like it barenaked and closer to the metal.
  - cmelbye 16y ago
    Could you share some information about how your app code is structured? The main reason I'm using Django is because I like that it gives me a directory structure. The only examples I've seen of webapp are a ton of handlers in one main.py file, which doesn't seem maintainable.
    - Kilimanjaro 16y ago
      Usually I put one handler per .py, to the point, what that particular module should do and nothing else. I leave the routing stuff to the app.yaml file. For a dir structure, I have admin, css, js, prog and view. Not hard to know what goes in every folder. Right now I have like fifty progs and fifty views, each for every specific task. For every program there is usually one line to get the data from models and one line to render it using a template. Nothing else. I really don't get what a framework would do to help me, I already have everything I need at my fingertips.
      - Kilimanjaro 16y ago
        Here is a sample index.py that renders index.html. I enhanced webapp with some utilities to make my life easier, I hate typing in excess. import app class main(app.request): app.session.start() data=app.models.getContacts() app.render('index',data) app.run('/',main) And here the html in the template: <html> <body> <h1>Contacts List</h1> {% for item in data %} <li>{{item.name}} - {{item.phone}}</li> {% endfor %} </body> </html> Some purists will burn me at the stake, but it works wonders for me.
krosaen 16y ago
We use python on GAE, and chose tornado, and admittedly this is partly because at the time it was the new hotness and I like friendfeed a lot. That said, even though with the wsgi adapter you've neutered what tornado is famous for (evented python framework), it is a nice concise web framework with a flexible templating system that is easy to grok and get working quickly, yet still has some nice features like UI modules, named url matching with reverse_url construction, xsrf protection and secure (in the sense that they are unforgeable) cookies. Its templating system doesn't auto escape, so we hacked it to do so. Using a minimalist framework is a pretty good match for app engine since other frameworks might assume something about the environment that won't be true of GAE. And you can always mix in other ala cart libraries. For instance, we use wtforms. That combined with a tornado UI module to render the forms nicely has been a effective. If I were to choose again, I might just use the built in web.py since they often include utility handlers for things like parsing multipart uploads; we've had to reimplement those for our tornado BaseHandler. Then I might use mustache for templating since we have started using that on the client side. Kind of random thoughts I guess, hopefully somewhat illuminating nonetheless :)
nir 16y ago
Anyone tried Flask/Bottle on GAE? These Sinatra-type mini frameworks seem like a good fit, but I never had a chance to try it out.
- sirn 16y ago
  I used Flask in two of my currently running apps. It works nicely together. AppEngine limitation never gets in the way, at least not much as running Django on AppEngine.
  - znt 16y ago
    Why did you chose Flask over tipfy? Because of Jinja2?
    - sirn 16y ago
      I can't remember exactly why, but it has something to do with how tipfy handles WSGI middleware back then (and it was very confusing, since tipfy also call their plugin system a "middleware"), and the framework being a bit too verbose for my liking.

by znt 16y ago

mmastrac 16y ago

I'm not as strong with GAE/Python as I am with GAE/Java, but my feeling is that your AppEngine experience will be far more productive if you use AppEngine's native Datastore APIs rather than any abstraction layer. There's a lot of detail at the low level that you miss by using any layers of abstraction (on both Python and Java platforms). That detail is important for getting maximum performance out of your application and correctly dealing with AppEngine's unique transaction model. The choice of web frameworks is tougher. Startup time is important right now for AppEngine (although slightly less important with some of the new features rolling down). You'll want to use the lightest-weight framework you can find. On Python, I've had great luck with webapp + Django templates + raw Datastore APIs. On Java, Guice + Guice servlets + raw Datastore API is really lightweight and fast. We've also developed our own Django-like templating system for Java that we hope to open-source at some point. Anyone else with more GAE/Python experience want to chime in?

adn37 16y ago
> We've also developed our own Django-like templating system for Java Any chance you could list viable alternatives, please? (I'm considering GAE/Java). Thanks for this interesting thread.
- mmastrac 16y ago
  I did a study of the bigger templating systems available on Java earlier this year and the landscape wasn't that great: JSP, Freemarker, Velocity and a number of smaller projects. We decided that it was worth some time developing a system inspired by Django's lightweight syntax. If you send me a note (matthew@mastracci.com), I can let you know when we get our project up on github. It's rendering every page on gri.pe right now and has been stable for a few months now.
  - arthur_kalm 16y ago
    Have you looked into Google Sitebricks for templating?
fletchowns 16y ago
How about a framework like objectify? Is that close enough to the low level datastore to get good performance?
- mmastrac 16y ago
  I've heard really good things about it. It's written for GAE and GAE only, so there aren't any abstractions that insulate you from how the datastore works. It's still worth your time to write some code against the raw datastore APIs. It takes some time for entity groups, keys and parents to sink in and working with the raw API helps you see what's going on.
- RoyceFullerton 16y ago
  I started with the raw datastore API and was able to do what I wanted after quite a bit of research and trial and error. I was then turned on to Objectify and couldn't be happier. I know what is going on underneath and the limitations but I have a much easier way to deal with them. Objectify is highly recommended, but my app doesn't have massive scale so I am not sure if it adversely affects performance much.
Kilimanjaro 16y ago
Webapp, webapp templates (just like django) and datastore. I like it barenaked and closer to the metal.
- cmelbye 16y ago
  Could you share some information about how your app code is structured? The main reason I'm using Django is because I like that it gives me a directory structure. The only examples I've seen of webapp are a ton of handlers in one main.py file, which doesn't seem maintainable.
  - Kilimanjaro 16y ago
    Usually I put one handler per .py, to the point, what that particular module should do and nothing else. I leave the routing stuff to the app.yaml file. For a dir structure, I have admin, css, js, prog and view. Not hard to know what goes in every folder. Right now I have like fifty progs and fifty views, each for every specific task. For every program there is usually one line to get the data from models and one line to render it using a template. Nothing else. I really don't get what a framework would do to help me, I already have everything I need at my fingertips.
    - Kilimanjaro 16y ago
      Here is a sample index.py that renders index.html. I enhanced webapp with some utilities to make my life easier, I hate typing in excess. import app class main(app.request): app.session.start() data=app.models.getContacts() app.render('index',data) app.run('/',main) And here the html in the template: <html> <body> <h1>Contacts List</h1> {% for item in data %} <li>{{item.name}} - {{item.phone}}</li> {% endfor %} </body> </html> Some purists will burn me at the stake, but it works wonders for me.

krosaen 16y ago

We use python on GAE, and chose tornado, and admittedly this is partly because at the time it was the new hotness and I like friendfeed a lot. That said, even though with the wsgi adapter you've neutered what tornado is famous for (evented python framework), it is a nice concise web framework with a flexible templating system that is easy to grok and get working quickly, yet still has some nice features like UI modules, named url matching with reverse_url construction, xsrf protection and secure (in the sense that they are unforgeable) cookies. Its templating system doesn't auto escape, so we hacked it to do so. Using a minimalist framework is a pretty good match for app engine since other frameworks might assume something about the environment that won't be true of GAE. And you can always mix in other ala cart libraries. For instance, we use wtforms. That combined with a tornado UI module to render the forms nicely has been a effective. If I were to choose again, I might just use the built in web.py since they often include utility handlers for things like parsing multipart uploads; we've had to reimplement those for our tornado BaseHandler. Then I might use mustache for templating since we have started using that on the client side. Kind of random thoughts I guess, hopefully somewhat illuminating nonetheless :)

nir 16y ago

Anyone tried Flask/Bottle on GAE? These Sinatra-type mini frameworks seem like a good fit, but I never had a chance to try it out.

sirn 16y ago
I used Flask in two of my currently running apps. It works nicely together. AppEngine limitation never gets in the way, at least not much as running Django on AppEngine.
- znt 16y ago
  Why did you chose Flask over tipfy? Because of Jinja2?
  - sirn 16y ago
    I can't remember exactly why, but it has something to do with how tipfy handles WSGI middleware back then (and it was very confusing, since tipfy also call their plugin system a "middleware"), and the framework being a bit too verbose for my liking.