[Python-Dev] Adding wsgiref to stdlib

[Guido van Rossum]

PEP 333 specifies WSGI, the Python Web Server Gateway Interface v1.0;
it's written by Phillip Eby who put a lot of effort in it to make it
acceptable to very diverse web frameworks. The PEP has been well
received by web framework makers and users.

As a supplement to the PEP, Phillip has written a reference
implementation, "wsgiref". I don't know how many people have used
wsgiref; I'm using it myself for an intranet webserver and am very
happy with it. (I'm asking Phillip to post the URL for the current
source; searching for it produces multiple repositories.)

I believe that it would be a good idea to add wsgiref to the stdlib,
after some minor cleanups such as removing the extra blank lines that
Phillip puts in his code. Having standard library support will remove
the last reason web framework developers might have to resist adopting
WSGI, and the resulting standardization will help web framework users.

Last time this was brought up there were feature requests and
discussion on how "industrial strength" the webserver in wsgiref ought
to be but nothing like the flamefest that setuptools caused (no
comments please).

I'm inviting people to discuss the addition of wsgiref to the standard
library. I'd like the discussion to be finished before a3 goes out;
technically it can go in up till the b1 code freeze, but I don't
really want to push it that close. I'd like the focus of the
discussion to be "what are the risks of adding wsgiref to the stdlib";
not "what could we think of that's even better". Achieving a perfect
decision is not the goal; having general consensus that adding it
would be better than not adding is would be good. Pointing out
specific bugs in wsgiref and suggesting how they ought to be fixed is
also welcome.

--
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)