Help me in this please--is Python the answer?

[Ray]

Tim N. van der Leeuw wrote:
> Hi Ray,

Hi Tim!

> I'm in a bit of the same boat as you only I don't get to choose my
> implementation language ;-)
>
> Some of the concerns should be:
> - Do you have to interface with things like messaging-systems (a la JMS
> specs), distributed transaction managers? If so, the only way to go
> Python is Jython: Python for the JVM. Because AFAIK, there are no
> interfaces for Python to the likes of IBM's MQSeries or for any
> distributed transaction managers.

Hmmm, at this level I think not. But yes, this is a good point, I'll
keep this in mind. If it's gonna be Jython, I think I might as well go
with J2EE--since it is yet another layer on top of a platform.

> - Is your application purely a web-based application? Or is there a
> large amount of application logic which is not tied to the web in any
> way?

Yes, it is purely a web-based application... well, it has a
"administration" page, that the back office stuff, but that can be
web-based as well.

> - Python has a number of frameworks for developing server applications,
> like Twisted, Zope and Django.
> I don't know Twisted; I know a little bit about Zope. Zope has several
> enterprise-level features and provides scalability/clustering.
> However, I've found the learning-curve for Zope to be a bit steep so
> far; too steep to master it in what little bits of spare time I have.
> (If I would have more time I'd be able to get the hang of it but I
> don't have enough time)

Ah, yes... all respect to Zope, but I hope this is something that can
be done in Django. I suspect the implementation time will be very, very
short... as typical of the nature of these projects, and with the
seeming intricacies of Zope, the impression of which I get from reading
about it, I don't think we have the spare time/effort...

> I've started to toy a bit with Django and it seems to get rather easy
> to get started with developing a Web application using Django; however
> I also get the feeling that installation is a bit more involved than
> with Zope and that it will be not as easy to package up an application
> and transport it to another machine, as it is with Zope.

Thanks, this is a useful info. I'm about to evaluate Django deeper
myself, how have you found it? Does it cover the whole "web" part of
the J2EE stack, at least? (i.e.: it can replace Tomcat)? How has your
experience been when you need to go further? (i.e.: beyond mapping data
in DB to webpages)?

> So for development of Web-applications, I would certainly consider
> either Zope or Django.
> Both offer ways to store your data in a transactional database; Django
> has some object-relation mapper tools but I'm not sure how exactly Zope
> stores data in a SQL database (it comes with it's own powerful
> object-database, the ZODB but I don't know if OR mapping tools exist
> for Zope).

Hmm, I've never got the time to look at Zope proper, but my
understanding is that Django is analogous to Tomcat, and Zope is
analogous to a full blown appserver a la WebLogic, right?

> So what are your requirements for 'J2EE' applications? And which Python
> framework would best fit the bill?

Hmmm, it's purely web-based, and I don't foresee message queueing and
stuff at this point. I'll take a better look at Django.

Thanks!
Ray

> 
> 
> cheers,
> 
> --Tim