[Web-SIG] Re: Just lost another one to Rails

[Shannon -jj Behrens]

At the last Bay Piggies meeting, as well as at PyCon, Guido felt
strongly that no Python Web application framework belonged in the
Python standard library for these reasons:

o The release schedule for such a library doesn't match the release
schedule of Python.  Imagine having to wait a year before an update to
the library came out?  That'd be unacceptible.
o Much of this is a matter of taste.
o There's no clear cut winner.

Zope and Twisted aren't a part of Python either, despite the fact that
they're wildly successful.  Perhaps it just doesn't make sense.

Best Regards,
-jj

On 4/29/05, Ian Bicking <ianb at colorstudy.com> wrote:
> Martijn Faassen wrote:
> > There are a ton of non-core XML frameworks around for Python, enjoying
> > considerate popularity. The python 'xml' package is not the "one true
> > way" to do XML with Python, and certainly doesn't enjoy anything near
> > the popularity and buzz of Ruby on Rails, say. I don't see why the
> > situation for any higher-level web framework should be different in this
> > respect.
> 
> I think the standard library is difficult, because it mixes all sorts of
> things together.  I involves methodology -- very conservative, backward
> compatible, slow to improve -- which suggests that a package should be
> at a certain point in its life.  It also suggests applicability, that
> the package should be reasonably generic and not unduly complex.  And it
> encourages people to use it, either directly or indirectly, instead of
> alternatives.  All of these are important, but they are fairly separate.
>   mxDateTime would have been a very capable implementation of date-time
> objects, and was a de facto standard, but because of methodology
> conflicts that didn't happen (I assume because mxDateTime had to be
> released on a schedule determined by commercial concerns).  Wx is
> similar but even worse; there's no practical way I can imagine it going
> into the standard library, and it's not just inertia, but rather Tk
> actually *remains* ideal simply because it is largely dead.
> 
> Generally the standard library is become much less practical way to move
> Python forward.  Backporting has to be extensive for the library to be
> viable to use.  Up-front design becomes burdensome -- I'm sure there was
> a lot of useful things that came out of the decimal discussion, but the
> whole process seemed odd and drawn-out from the outside.  Copied designs
> can shortcut this (e.g., logging), but lead to other design problems.
> And even as this happens, distributions are often pulling the standard
> library apart into pieces.  Batteries Included has certainly helped me
> as a developer, but it's not what I have my eyes on for the future.
> 
> It would be nice if process and politics could be separated.  There's a
> lot of modules in the standard library that no one should use, even if
> they aren't marked "deprecated" -- there might be no reason for those
> modules to go away ever, but they just shouldn't get new users.
> Similarly there's modules not in the standard library that should be de
> facto standards, but for good reason can't be part of the standard
> library development process.  But there's no way to suggest that to
> people except for information question-and-answer sessions in IRC or
> mailing lists, or the the vague and unpredictable rankings of Google.
> 
> "Politics" might be a bad name for this; it doesn't have to be
> contentious -- for instance, sgmllib has no hero who will be offended
> that people are steered away from it.  But I can't think of a better
> name.  Anyway, I think it might be possible to resolve that issue more
> easily than the technical issues involved in extending the standard library.
> 
> --
> Ian Bicking  /  ianb at colorstudy.com  /  http://blog.ianbicking.org
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