3 ms·

So many web frameworks slowly evolve features that Pylons has had for years. I think it's by far the most under appreciated framework out there.

erlanger 17y ago
Which feature(s) are you referring to?
- jmtulloss 17y ago
  StackedObjectProxy (which I have mixed feelings about), data mapper pattern (basically SQLAlchemy kicking ass), and the kicker: an integrated debugger. There are others I've noticed, but that's off the top of my head. Of course, Pylons falls short in some other areas.
  - erlanger 17y ago
    To be fair, StackedObjectProxy comes from Paste, not Pylons.
    - jmtulloss 17y ago
      Almost all of pylons' nice features come from it being built on some of the best python projects out there. Pylons itself isn't much more than glue, but as a packaged deal, it can't be beat. That's my two cents anyway.
      - sverrejoh 17y ago
        And Pylons isn't much more than a thin layer on top of Paste anyway.
  - simonw 17y ago
    I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on StackedObjectProxy. What is it that makes you uncomfortable about it?
    - jmtulloss 17y ago
      Well, it's been a while, but I'll see what I can recall. I fought with them a lot during one project, though it may have been due to a lack of understanding. You can view a bit of that struggle here: http://groups.google.com/group/pylons-discuss/browse_thread/thread/12d94d885c476931/51063c7746898da1 http://groups.google.com/group/pylons-discuss/browse_thread/... The main issue is that they're poorly documented and don't seem that pythonic to me. They are not standard python objects, and as such they are difficult to debug. Hopefully the situation has improved in the past year or so.
brodie 17y ago
I see what you're saying here about how Pylons makes heavy use of WSGI chaining, but I really just cannot fathom that Django is "approaching" Pylons. Perhaps things have improved since I last used Pylons, but there were so many issues with it that drove me absolutely crazy and eventually drove me away from the framework all together. Off the top of my head: - Poorly written, half written, scattered, or plain old missing documentation all over the place. - Poor release coordination and communication. - Version incompatibility hell between different releases of its components/dependencies. - Incomplete solutions for basic things like form generation. At the time that I was using Pylons they seemed to jump between a quite a few different libraries, none of which really worked well. - Tons of magic that both offended my sensibilities and made debugging a nightmare. To be honest, I don't think any Python web framework was quite "there" at that time, but I think today Django has far exceeded Pylons. Also, I'm not sure I'd consider Pylons a micro-framework.
- jmtulloss 17y ago
  I never said that Django was becoming Pylons or that Pylons was a micro framework. All I'm saying is that features Pylons (and included projects) has had forever keep being reinvented in other frameworks when people suddenly realize what a good idea they are. Pylons' documentation is a nightmare, I'll agree with you there. It's a shame too, if it was better documented, I feel it could really compete.
  - simonw 17y ago
    Guilty as charged - I'm always up for borrowing good ideas from other projects. That's what open source is about. Most of my favourite ideas in Django were inspired by other frameworks (template inheritance came from Cheetah, the request/response objects were inspired by a combination of Java servlets and PHP). I should probably set aside some time to build a project using modern Pylons and find out about all the other good ideas I've been missing!

erlanger 17y ago

Which feature(s) are you referring to?

jmtulloss 17y ago
StackedObjectProxy (which I have mixed feelings about), data mapper pattern (basically SQLAlchemy kicking ass), and the kicker: an integrated debugger. There are others I've noticed, but that's off the top of my head. Of course, Pylons falls short in some other areas.
- erlanger 17y ago
  To be fair, StackedObjectProxy comes from Paste, not Pylons.
  - jmtulloss 17y ago
    Almost all of pylons' nice features come from it being built on some of the best python projects out there. Pylons itself isn't much more than glue, but as a packaged deal, it can't be beat. That's my two cents anyway.
    - sverrejoh 17y ago
      And Pylons isn't much more than a thin layer on top of Paste anyway.
- simonw 17y ago
  I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on StackedObjectProxy. What is it that makes you uncomfortable about it?
  - jmtulloss 17y ago
    Well, it's been a while, but I'll see what I can recall. I fought with them a lot during one project, though it may have been due to a lack of understanding. You can view a bit of that struggle here: http://groups.google.com/group/pylons-discuss/browse_thread/thread/12d94d885c476931/51063c7746898da1 http://groups.google.com/group/pylons-discuss/browse_thread/... The main issue is that they're poorly documented and don't seem that pythonic to me. They are not standard python objects, and as such they are difficult to debug. Hopefully the situation has improved in the past year or so.

brodie 17y ago

I see what you're saying here about how Pylons makes heavy use of WSGI chaining, but I really just cannot fathom that Django is "approaching" Pylons. Perhaps things have improved since I last used Pylons, but there were so many issues with it that drove me absolutely crazy and eventually drove me away from the framework all together. Off the top of my head: - Poorly written, half written, scattered, or plain old missing documentation all over the place. - Poor release coordination and communication. - Version incompatibility hell between different releases of its components/dependencies. - Incomplete solutions for basic things like form generation. At the time that I was using Pylons they seemed to jump between a quite a few different libraries, none of which really worked well. - Tons of magic that both offended my sensibilities and made debugging a nightmare. To be honest, I don't think any Python web framework was quite "there" at that time, but I think today Django has far exceeded Pylons. Also, I'm not sure I'd consider Pylons a micro-framework.

jmtulloss 17y ago
I never said that Django was becoming Pylons or that Pylons was a micro framework. All I'm saying is that features Pylons (and included projects) has had forever keep being reinvented in other frameworks when people suddenly realize what a good idea they are. Pylons' documentation is a nightmare, I'll agree with you there. It's a shame too, if it was better documented, I feel it could really compete.
- simonw 17y ago
  Guilty as charged - I'm always up for borrowing good ideas from other projects. That's what open source is about. Most of my favourite ideas in Django were inspired by other frameworks (template inheritance came from Cheetah, the request/response objects were inspired by a combination of Java servlets and PHP). I should probably set aside some time to build a project using modern Pylons and find out about all the other good ideas I've been missing!