htmllib, cgi, HTMLfmt, genCGI, HTMLgen, html, Zope, ...

[Sim & Golda Zacks]

I am in the exact same situation as you are. I am a web programmer and I'm
trying to implement the CGI and database stuff with Python. I am using the
HTMLFMT module from the INTERNET PROGRAMMING book and the cgi module from the
standard library. What the HTMLFMT library does for you is just that you don't
have to type in all the tags, basically it's nothing magical, if I didn't have
it I would have to make something up and it probably wouldn't be half as good.
the standard cgi unit gives you all the fields from the form, and I haven't
looked at the cgi modules from the book yet to see if they give me any added
benefit. The big problem I came across was my web host, and all of the other
ones I talked to, refused to  install the mysql interface to Python, and it has
to be included in the build (or something like that) So I just installed gadfly,
which seems to be working great for me right now. I'm still playing with it not
in production yet.
I have no idea what ZOPE does, but everyone who talks about it seems to love it.

Hope this helps

Sim Zacks

Thomas Ackermann wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I need to generate some hompages and cgi-script for database access,
> forms and such and want to do it in Python, of course. As it is i have
> no experience with it's WWW-related stuff ...
>
> There are htmllib and cgi from the library, HTMLfmt and genCGI from
> the "Internet Programming with Python" book, HTMLgen itself and
> something just announced called "html", which seems to be a variant of
> HTMLgen(?!)
>
> I have not much time to experiment with those modules and would like
> to hear opinions about to use what module     ;-)
>
> Also, i am not exactly sure what Zope is - it seems to be something to
> create WWW-Pages and allow access to databases and it has it's own
> WebServer (a variant of Medusa) ...
>
> So, what to use to allow for an Internet-Shop with pages created from
> databases and allowing customers to purchase over net?
>
> Can do Zope such things? Is it overkill at first? What can it do
> beyond? (And yes, i read some documentation, but i do not even
> understand what an "Application Server" is    ;-)
>
>           Thanx in advance and
>           Byebye,
> --
>   Thomas Ackermann | Tel. +49-(0)228/631369|73-7773 | <tgm at math.uni-bonn.de>
>              finger tgm at rhein.math.uni-bonn.de for public key
>                GNU LINUX Python gtk pygtk MySQL FUDGE GURPS