[Web-SIG] more comments on Paste Deploy

[Robert Brewer]

Jeff Shell wrote:
> On 3/7/07, Robert Brewer <fumanchu at amor.org> wrote:
> > Jeff Shell wrote:
> > > Configuration and deployment?
> > >
> > > I'm trying to understand the scope of these terms (or 
> this combined
> > > term) better. I take it 'configuration' means just how an 
> 'app' might
> > > publish itself to a WSGI server. Is that right?
> > >
> > > For us, deployment now is:
> > >
> > > 1. Make a Zope 3 instance home ('appserv1')
> > > 2. `cd appserv1/lib/python; cvs checkout customerapp`
> > > 3. `rockout -vv customerapp/Rockfile install` (installs
> > > dependencies, mostly
> > >    by CVS / Subversion checkout, usually directly into
> > > `appserv1/lib/python`)
> > > 4. `cd ../../etc` (back to 'appserv1/etc')
> > > 5. choose a port number in zope.conf (the zope/twisted 
> server config)
> > > 6. add two lines to Zope 3's `site.zcml` to set up our app
> > > 7. add site info to apache (rewriterule(s) /  proxy).
> > >
> > > Is this analogous to the deployment and configuration 
> being discussed?
> >
> > Yes, although I want to make sure we keep discussion of 'site
> > installation' very separate from 'website composition' (where you
> > already have all the pieces and just need to declare where 
> they are and
> > how they map to URL's). IMO site installation is a 3 to 
> 5-year project;
> > website composition is a one-year project that shouldn't 
> get bogged down
> > in the former.
> 
> Could you elaborate more on these terms? To whom do the spans 'one
> year project' and '3 to 5 year project' apply?

I meant those terms to apply to web-sig and any work we do on this list
to produce specs, libraries, or tools to address such domains in a
common fashion. That is, I think it would take 3 to 5 years for web-sig
to produce a 'site installation' tool (although leveraging setuptools
could be part of this timeframe), but only a year to produce a initial,
reasonable spec or tool for composing and controlling websites built
with WSGI components.

> Often we have web apps, written in Zope 3, that are really two or more
> web apps. Like an 'admin' side and 'public' side, typically handled
> via different skins/views. Apache rewrite rules basically handle that
> routing. So in my mind, if I deploy our CMS, I have the following URL
> maps:
> 
> http://example.com/admin/(.*) => examplesite/++skin++CMSAdmin/$1
> http://example.com/(.*) => examplesite/++skin++ExamplePublic/$1
> 
> Same Zope application, with just a couple of different settings based
> on the incoming URL, and then Zope and our app handles the rest of the
> URL.
> 
> Is that a site installation? Two site installations? Or two examples
> of website composition? Again, I'm just trying to understand the
> terminology and map it to the way I'm used to working, and I think of
> the above as 'site installation'.

In my book, that would be one site, two apps (and in this example, one
framework). And I never use the word "installation" to describe the
site; to me it's always used as an adjective (as in the phrase
"installation process").

> The other tried and true example I can think of is when a customer
> asks "uhm, and can we have a forum with that?" I guess website
> composition might include the above two URL maps, plus one for:
> 
> http://example.com/forum/(.*) => SuperTerrificPylonsWebForumWSGI
> 
> But should this be the provence of WSGI?

It's reasonable to ask for that, IMO. Many people are already using WSGI
to do just that sort of mixing. The issue we're discussing is that there
are currently several ways to declare/compose a stack of WSGI
components, and we'd like to see if we can standardize.

> With Apache rewrite rules, if
> I was doing such a blunt grafting of 'forum' onto my customer's site,
> I could just as easily use phpBB. Then I'm not limiting myself to
> Python if I feel there's a better suited tool for a particular task.
> 
> I brought up this forum example because it's something we've run into
> a couple of times and may be about to encounter again. Depending on
> customer needs and wants, one of our thoughts is to just drop in some
> PHP bulletin board or some other feature complete app.

http://www.google.com/search?q=wsgi+php


Robert Brewer
System Architect
Amor Ministries
fumanchu at amor.org