[Web-SIG] WSGI - alternative ideas

Phillip J. Eby pje at telecommunity.com
Sat Aug 14 19:53:51 CEST 2004


At 01:42 PM 8/14/04 -0400, angryhicKclown at netscape.net wrote:
>Hi, I've just subscribed to this list, but I've read much of the archives. 
>Python is in dire and immediate need of WSGI.
>
>I think WSGI needs to be essentially very similar to jonpy (jonpy.sf.net), 
>except without the templating. Jonpy exposes an interface very similar to 
>Java servlets, and can run on cgi, fastcgi, and mod_python by changing one 
>line of code. WSGI, I believe, should be a higher-level interface than 
>what has been currently outlined. For Python to succeed as a web language 
>(and I believe that it will), it needs to support the following out of the box:
>
>- a clean servlet interface, see jonpy's Handler classes
>- support for a multitude of different platforms easily
>- sessions
>- database connection pooling
>- caching

These needs are already served by dozens of Python web frameworks.  To 
duplicate even *one* of these facilities in the WSGI specification simply 
adds to the number of existing web frameworks, without fixing 
anything.  WSGI is *intentionally* primitive, to minimize the number of 
things that different frameworks disagree on.

Unfortunately, *everybody* wants to write the "framework to end all 
frameworks", but this always just results in the existence of framework 
number N+1.  To really change the status quo, there *must* exist something 
which is *not* a framework.

WSGI can reach critical mass if a sufficient number of popular frameworks 
and servers support it.  By contrast, a new framework must successfully 
"recruit" *individual* users of existing frameworks who have (potentially) 
already written quite a lot of code to that framework's API.

A new framework also threatens the value of the investments existing 
framework authors have made, and therefore does not encourage their 
participation in "cannibalizing" their work!



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