The Hive Archive

Apparently Django might become the defacto Python framework. Django is pretty good, but I’m kind of surprised that Turbogears didn’t get the nod.

Link

“The TurboGears 1.0 API is done. There may be some minor additions, but
there won’t be breaking changes between now and 1.0 final. I’m also
working to ensure that only changes with minimal risk to production
use are checked into the 1.0 branch. So, everything is organized
around the notion that we are stabilizing things for a 1.0 release.”

Kevin Dangoor

I’ve been looking forward to this announcement.  It is hard to get caught up in a web framework when you know there could be major upheaval in the API.  I haven’t been able to get into the Ruby craze, I’m still on my Python kick for awhile longer and with TurboGears and Django going stable, there isn’t a better time to be a Python web developer.

I’ve tried out Turbogears and Django, ultimately putting together a quick prototype in Django, because the built in admin interface was the only thing left for me to complete.  It was simple enough to port over my object from Turbogears, add in some meta data and push the whole thing to “production”.

Unfortunately, I started coding in Django right before the “magic” removal branch went public.  The documentation didn’t mention anything about a massive API change that seems to require lots of changes to any code you write.  Not that it is too important to me, it will be faster for me to start over and move the methods into the new branch.  Still frustrating.

Of the two, I think Turbogears has the long term advantage.  I love the fact that someone took the time to integrate a bunch of seperate programs into a whole (it’s not quite coherent yet).  The desire to re-invent the wheel is strong with all programmers and I’ve done it myself a couple times.  Turbogears also is not quite ready, they have some nice widgets that will be a joy to use, but when I tried, I couldn’t find any documentation beyond the wiki.  The example in the wiki didn’t work with my build, so I decided I would come back to it after I had tried  Django.  Maybe after they come out with 1.0.

Which leaves me to ponder trying out Ruby on Rails.  Frankly, I’ve been avoiding it because I want to stick with Python.  I’ve been using Python for all my Unix Scripting and I love the way it is put together.  I’ve heard good things about Ruby, but I also want to deepen my Python experience, not dilute the languages I know with yet another one.  But considering Rails is past 1.0 and is gaining momentum, it would be a mistake not to look into it further.

There is no doubt in my mind that I ever want to go back to writing straight PHP if I don’t have to though.  These new frameworks make writing web applications a joy.  The thought of thousands of lines of poorly written PHP make me shudder.