Call for Members of Panels on Web Technologies

[Jeff Rush]

Talks at previous PyCons have tended to be of the lecture format.  I'd like to
see if we can get some panel discussions going and am looking for participants.

At PyCon 2005 in D.C. Michelle Levesque gave a wonderful talk, PyWebOff,
contrasting a few of the web frameworks.  However, it is a lot of work to
research many of them, so how about instead we just invite some experts for
the various frameworks to debate them instead?  And answer tough questions
from the audience?

For updating, links to the following rough outlines are at:
  http://us.pycon.org/TX2007/TalkIdeas

We need some moderators to work up more questions, and to coordinate with the
panelists.  Hey, it may be easier than preparing your own presentation and slides.

I'd like to see three talk panels:

---
Panel - Web Frameworks
Frameworks

 * Django
 * Zope 2
 * Zope 3
 * Twisted Web
 * Quixote
 * TurboGears

Questions Put To the Panel

 * When did the framework come into existence and what problem
   was it created to solve?
 * What are its strengths and maturity level? What is it ideal
   to use for?
 * What are its weaknesses? What would you NOT use it for?

---
Panel - Web Templating Languages
Templates Covered

 * Zope TAL, TALES, METAL
 * Twisted STAN
 * Cheetah
 * Myghty
 * Django's Template Language
 * TurboGears Kid
 * Quixote Python Template Language (PTL)

Questions to Put to the Panelists

 * Python code in your HTML, or HTML in your code?
 * Which can and cannot be handed off to a graphics designer?
 * Where do they stand in performance? in Caching?
 * Which can work with less than a page i.e. Zope viewlets, widgets?
 * Which frameworks let me plug in my choice of template language?

(initially show the audience a representative sample of each)

---
Panel - Object Relational Mappers (ORMs)
Mappers Covered

 * SQLObject
 * SQLAlchemy
 * Django ORM

Questions Put to Panelists

 * Natural or artificial keys?
 * Support for existing database schemas or must I
   do it your way?
 * How is the performance?
 * How smart is it in handling complex schema?
 * Any support for access control security at the
   object level?
 * What flavor and degree of transaction support is
   offered? Per thread, per context, autocommit?

-Jeff
Co-Chair PyCon 2007