Python as replacement for PHP?

[Skip Montanaro]

    Erik> 1) PHP seems to have a pretty good integration/driver with
    Erik>    PostgreSQL.  If we were to switch to Python, what
    Erik>    modules/drivers are available to talk to PosgreSQL and is it as
    Erik>    functional as PHP's support?

I use psycopg and like it.  There are a couple others as well.

    Erik> 3) Does Python have an analog to strtotime()? (For those not
    Erik>    familiar with that function, it converts a wide range of date
    Erik>    formats as string into time_t value. Can handle things like
    Erik>    "now", "+24 hours", "-3 days", "yesterday 06:00PM MST",
    Erik>    "January 23, 2004", "2004-02-26 18:00:00 -07", etc.)

Marc-Andre Lemburg's mxDateTime might be the closest you'll get to such wide
ranging formats.

    Erik> 4) I am vaguely aware of Apache's modpython. We are currently
    Erik>    running apache, but I'm real green when it comes to
    Erik>    configuring/running/managing Apache. I don't really understand
    Erik>    what all modpython does for me. Generally allows Apache to
    Erik>    foist off an HTTP request on a Python script to handle I
    Erik>    assume, but maybe some kind soul can better inform me about
    Erik>    what all modpython really does for me?

It essentially avoids process creation and Python startup overhead.  Both
can be significant performance barriers on heavily loaded systems.

    Erik> 5) A PHP script can freely jump in and out of static HTML and
    Erik>    script code with <?php ?> tags. This is sometimes handy. Can
    Erik>    you do the same thing with Python?

There are lots of different Python-based templating systems.  I like
Quixote.  It's roughly the inverse of the way most systems do the
HTML/<language> mind-meld.  Instead of Python-in-HTML it's HTML-in-Python.
There are other systems with which I am not aware.  Cheetah and PSP come to
mind.

    Erik> 6) Debugging: I'm aware there is a debugger for Python - I haven't
    Erik>    really used it. Maybe there is a better way to do this using
    Erik>    PHP, but right now when a PHP script isn't working right, I'm
    Erik>    reduced to print statements and just re-running the script. Do
    Erik>    you know a better way to do this in PHP?  If I were doing
    Erik>    things in Python, is there an easy way to generate an HTTP
    Erik>    request from my browser, but stop the generating script and
    Erik>    analyze it in a Python debugger?

Inserting print statements is a pretty common debugging technique in Python
as well.  Also, take a look at the cgitb module.

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