Application architecture (long post - sorry)

[limeydrink at hotmail.com]

All these web technologies I don't know where to start, have you got
any suggestions for getting started in the world of web development,
books maybe ?

Once again thanks for your help

Mike Meyer wrote:

> limeydrink at hotmail.com writes:
> > Ok then, web it is, just wondering how you can test the web application
> > while developing and how do you find out the capabilities of the
> > browser, I now have browsed WAP pages on my Windows smartphone, is
> > there any difference to developing a WAP/WML solution to a HTML -
> > obviously it's in a different markup language, but is there anything
> > else that is needed between the client and the webserver ?
>
> I wouldn't bother with WAP/WML these days. It's designed for *really*
> small devices, like pagers and 2nd millenium cell phones. Unless, of
> course, something else dictates it's use.
>
> You found out the capabilities of the browser by reading the browser
> documentation. That should specify which version of
> HTML/XHTML/CSS/DOM/etc. it supports. I wouldn't worry to much about
> finding a browser that supports exactly the same set of
> documents. Find one that supports at least those, then use that. I
> like FireFox, because the available extensions include lots of things
> that are useful for web developers. Make sure you only use features
> that are documented as supported by the target browser. You'll have
> problems with bugs in FireFox for some things, and then when you get
> around to deployment you'll have problems with bugs in your target
> browser. The further you stay away from advanced/esoteric features,
> the less trouble you'll have.
>
> > I have only ever played at web development in the past and I used MS
> > Active Server Pages and this seemed pretty straightforward, I know you
> > can use Python as the scripting language for ASP but I want something
> > platform neutral, so I was wondering if anyone could suggest some
> > similar framework for Python on both Linux and Windows.
>
> And with that, you open a can of worms. There are so many choices
> available for Python that people complain there are to many. The
> closest thing to ASP is PSP. There are a number of version of that;
> I'd use the one bundled with recent versions of mod_python for Apache
> if you want that. Personally, I prefer to Cheetah Templates to PSP -
> it plays better in the OO world, and I can use intelligent
> HTML/XML/SGML editors on the files. You can also "precompile" cheetah
> templates to python, and just put on the server; I'm not sure you can
> do that with mod_python's PSP. There are other choices at that level,
> and there are also far more integrated solutions available as
> well. You may have to byte the bullet and evaluate them.
>
>     <mike
> --
> Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>			http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
> Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.