[Web-SIG] Regarding the WSGI draft

[Titus Brown]

-> I have been reading this thread for a while now, and I haven't commented 
-> because I have done absolutely no web development using Python. However, 
-> Mark's comments strike me as being dead on. I'm used to the Java Servlet API, 
-> which creates an API for servlets and JSP pages. The fact that there are 
-> several high quality application servers that all support this API suggests 
-> to me that creating something similar for Python makes a lot of sense. I have 
-> written JSP's and servlets and run them under Tomcat, but I know that I could 
-> just as easily run them under WebSphere, WebLogic, JRun, or any others that 
-> support the API. It seems to me that creating a similar API for Python would 
-> be terrific. Of course, somebody would also have to write an application 
-> server to support the API, but I suspect some of the existing frameworks 
-> could be revamped to support it. Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I would love to 
-> see something similar to Tomcat and the Java Servlet API for Python.

<delurk>

I've implemented packages at the adapter level (PyWX), the framework
level (crud that was never released because I found Quixote first), and
the content level (based variously on CGI, WebWare, and Quixote).

I'm moderately skeptical of the short term use of the API being
developed on this list, because in practice it is relatively easy
to implement a framework that fits on top of all of the existing
adapters (CGI, mod_python, etc.)  Medium term, I think it will lead
to a welcome homogenization of server <--> adapter <--> framework
interaction, and so I think it's a valuable concept.

The idea of having a single framework (like Java's "servlets") is, I
think, silly.  Having implemented sites in several of the existing
frameworks, it is clear that there are several different ways to
conceptualize the development of Web sites: the Quixote style and
the WebWare style are two very distinct examples.  Anything that cuts
down on the variety of available frameworks is going to restrict the
options, which is bad.

However, I think it is incumbent upon the developers and users of the
different frameworks to clearly distinguish between the various options.
Right now it is very confusing to me, and I've been developing Web sites
in Python for 5 years ;).

I'm very confused as to why you need multiple servlet implementations in
Java.  Wouldn't one do just as well as 10?  It sounds like having 5
different implementations of the 'os' module in Python...

--titus