[Web-SIG] [Python-Dev] Adding wsgiref to stdlib

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 07:48 PM 4/28/2006 -0500, Ian Bicking wrote:
>One is not more complex than the other.

The implementation has more moving parts, but I was talking about 
conceptual complexity.

The most common web servers do not match path prefixes, they have 
directories and files.  You can't have /foo/bar without a /foo.  I see 
little value in implementing a system where you *can* have /foo/bar without 
a /foo.  HTTP URLs are inherently and explicitly hierarchical; they aren't 
arbitrary strings that happen to have slashes in them, which is what prefix 
matching treats them as.


>Paths are
>strings, not trees or objects.  When you confuse strings for objects you
>are moving into framework territory.

Quite the reverse, actually.  When you confuse URL paths for strings, 
you're just misunderstanding HTTP.  If you don't believe me, read the HTTP 
and URI RFCs.  I don't think that such confusion should be embedded in 
wsgiref, let alone the stdlib.