xitami LRWP in Python

[francois lepoutre]

Hi John,

First point.... you are on the right track.
I have been on the same one just a couple
of months ago. We delivered recently a
very powerful stateful app that offers
this kind of functionality.

Perf is really great.

Python + mod_python or  python + xitami
is an extremely powerful combo for the
kind of stuff you want to deliver.

A lot of power under your hood....

But there is a slight confusion in your mail concerning
multiuser and web. Your application could run
on both as cgi and mod_python or LRWP.
Or fastcgi or webware...

I suppose you have developped in a typical
client/server environment such as odbc or others
where the development model is quite different.

You are on short learning curve that includes:
- python, really cool and simple,
- cgi, the plain old technologies of the 20th century,
- xitami or apache "persistent" interface.

cgi is the key issue here. use a plain old book
on the subject (key issue is the "cookie" stuff)

LRWP or mod_python will just make
it possible to run the thing faster.

If you choose cgi every hit on any browser
over your intranet will generate a call
to your application ... and a big db call.

With LRWP or mod_python the db
call will be made once (and possibly
refreshed every x days, hours or minutes)
and the content of your data will then
stay in ram for a period of time.

Your application which is extremely simple.

Just keeping the state is the issue.
This is where the trick is.

I think you should develop the app as
a cgi one and move it to LRWP later when
it is functional. Before moving into production.

We did that.

The learning experience will be in two phases. Easier.

> I have to keep each user's
> current position in the table as some form of session variable? If I
> do, how do I re-establish the last position in the table before doing
> "Next".

I propose you try to keep the "record_id" in a cookie.
For a start and move up from that.

I hope i was clear enough... mother (and father's by the wauy) tongue is
french.

Good luck

Francois