Framework recommendations for web service?

[Larry Bates]

Phillip B Oldham wrote:
> We're looking at the next phase of development for our webapp, and the
> main focus will be to move the core from the app to a web service so
> other systems can use the data we've gathered (we're thinking along
> the lines of the XML API of Highrise from 37Signals).
> 
> Its possible that we'll extend the service to allow access via vanilla
> XML, JSON, and YAML at some point, however we've decided to use
> Facebook's Thrift for connectivity initially to support as many techs
> as possible and also because our web interface for the app is written
> in PHP.
> 
> As we're extracting the core we'll be translating it to Python to make
> use of the wealth of well-structured libraries and hopefully make the
> project shorter. However, we've hit a snag in choosing a framework
> around which to rebuild the service.
> 
> It seems the more popular frameworks (django, turbogears) are all
> focused on providing web content. Since our core will be using thrift
> to communicate, we don't need templating, feeds, admin pages (django),
> or ajax (turbogears).
> 
> What we *do* need is a lightweight, simple framework that will allow
> us to create a RESTful interface and throw code together fast. We'll
> probably go with SQLObject (unless we can extract the ORM from django
> - lazy evaluation would be very useful), and we're just looking for
> something fast and light to sit between that and the thrift interfaces
> we'll create.
> 
> So, can anyone suggest a lightweight python framework which just does
> the essentials?

You want thin and fast with little cruft and a focus on interfaces, look at Twisted.

-Larry