What do you want in a new web framework?

[Cliff Wells]

On Wed, 2006-08-23 at 02:28 -0700, Paul Boddie wrote:
> Cliff Wells wrote:

> > No, the reason Rails is successful is due to being a decent, focused
> > product with *great* marketing (screencasts, anyone?).
> 
> Screencasts? Perhaps, like a great showman, they draw in the punters
> effectively enough, but I'd rather developers concentrate on writing
> decent documentation than stuffing the pipes of the Internet up with
> multi-megabyte proprietary blobs showing some individual developing
> "hello world" (and still having to practise slight-of-hand in order to
> make it "slick" enough).

Well, I think screencasts are pretty great for this type of thing.
Think about the primary complaint: "Which one do I choose?".  It can
take a while to wade through the various documentation (or lack of),
install, do some basic tests, etc and the whole process can be pretty
wearing on a newcomer.  A screencast on the other hand lets you lazily
sip coffee while you get a small feel for the framework.  I think it
also shows what someone who *knows* the framework can do (which can be
nearly impossible to know when you're testing it yourself).  The "20
minute wiki" screencast would be the "2 day trial and error" for someone
new to the framework. 

> 
> [...]
> 
> > Also the fact that Ruby doesn't suck isn't hurting Rails any either.  If
> > GvR wants to improve Python's status against Ruby, I suggest looking at
> > what people are *really* raving about in the Ruby world (despite how
> > they got there) and address those issues rather than getting sidetracked
> > with this nonsense.
> 
> First of all, I'd take the raving from the Ruby scene with a pinch of
> salt, given the tendency of the blog personalities doing the raving to
> breathlessly declare some kind of victory at every turn - as Steve
> Holden once said, these people are good at the "don't mention the
> weaknesses" style of marketing, and that's probably something various
> Python Web framework developers have picked up quite effectively. 

Oh sure.  And you have to also remind yourself that most of these guys
are coming from PHP where practically nothing sucks by comparison (and
there are *lots* of PHP people to convert).  

But there are interesting things in Ruby (and Ruby 2 should take care of
lots of warts Ruby 1.8 has) that Python could learn from.  All-in-all,
Ruby is mostly as good as Python in most ways and better than Python in
a couple key ways.  Add marketing to that (whatever kind it happens to
be) and you've got the recipe for success. 

When I suggest using Python to customers they tend to get nervous as if
it's some esoteric language that might disappear off the map next
weekend and is only known to 12 people.  I shouldn't need to reassure
people that it is what it is: one of the most popular languages in use
today.  That's the other kind of bad marketing that Python should avoid.

> I'd rather the Python core developers stopped chasing shadows and looked at
> the Python distribution in its entirety. Hopefully, the Python 3000
> exercise will see its focus shift into really removing the artifacts of
> legacy decisions in both the language and the library rather than
> shoehorning more wishlist items into the language.

My single wishlist item (which will probably never happen) is actually
the *removal* of a single "feature": the distinction between statements
and expressions.  Forget list comprehensions, ternary operators, etc.
You get them with no additional syntax in expression-based languages.  I
played with Logix a bit (but sadly the project appears dead) and the
expression-based Python syntax it provides gives me goose-bumps.

At this point in my life, inertia keeps me with Python (it's "good
enough" and I lack the time and energy to convert to another language),
but there's little doubt in my mind that this distinction will
eventually force me elsewhere *wipes away tear*.  


Regards,
Cliff