[Web-SIG] Pre-PEP: Python Web Container Interface v1.0

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 11:52 PM 12/10/03 -0500, Gregory (Grisha) Trubetskoy wrote:

>I really liked the problem statement in the PEP; perhaps we can add a note
>to it that the problem can have a much more comprehensive solution and
>that the solution described, although simple, isn't the most efficient and
>in many ways defficient. This will shut up people like me who will read
>the PEP and say "But this is just the old lame CGI?".

I'll make sure this viewpoint is included when I do the next draft 
(probably this weekend).

It will probably be by saying something like, "this spec doesn't give the 
application any direct control over a container, and so may be 
unsatisfactory for some more-demanding applications.  In practice, such 
applications today must interact directly with a web server, as via 
mod_python, or via the internal API of a web server written in Python.  It 
is possible that future versions of this specification, or another 
specification, will address these more demanding needs.

"However, in the interests of providing the greatest good to the greatest 
number as soon as practical, this version of the specification will focus 
on simplicity and ease of implementation (to encourage rapid adoption), and 
high portability (to encourage widespread adoption).  Once this occurs, 
container and application/framework developers will be in a better position 
to define requirements for a complementary application-to-container 
interface to supplement this container-to-application interface."

Something like that, anyway.  I'll probably work that in with some of the 
threading stuff.

So far, there's going to be a new Goals/Scope section that'll deal with 
these and other scope issues that people found confusing.  There'll be a 
section added on threading and process model issues.  There'll need to be 
an expanded rationale regarding the whole dictionary thing.  And, I'll add 
a "Discussion and Dissention" section to cover the positive and negative 
feedback so far.