Better Web Application Framework
By Dr Chris P. Jobling
For a web application that I am developing as part of a research project I have decided on using [Python](http://python.org/) for the business logic. The reasons being that the application will use fixed-point binary arithmetic, units, and data output as line-graphs. Python seems to have the libraries that I’ll need for this and is better suited for rapid development than Java.
Part of the requirements that I have been researching this last week have been concerned with the identification of a suitable web application framework for Python. I started out this week assuming that this would be [Django](http://www.djangoproject.com/) and even bought the [book](http://www.djangobook.com/)! However, because this is research, I have the luxury of time so I’ve done some additional research and decided that the alternative frameworks [TurboGears](http://turbogears.org/) and [Pylons](http://pylonshq.com/) were also worth a look. Searching Google for getting started screencasts and videos I discovered a [wonderful video](http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=6297126166376226181&q=turbogears&total=20&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0) of a web application framework comparison presentation by Sean Kelly. In this presentation, Sean uses J2EE (Servlets and JSPs), Rails, DJango, TurboGears, Zope/Plone and even Enterprise Java Beans (JBoss) to develop a simple time-tracker application and reports his experiences. Rails, Django and TurboGears come out (roughly in that order), but the big surprise is that [Zope](http://www.zope.org/)/[Plone](http://plone.org/) comes out top! So, maybe I need to rethink!
I’ve embedded the video here as it’s not only a useful and timely comparison of web application frameworks, it’s also an example of just how useful and inspirational a simple presentation can be!
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=6297126166376226181&hl=en-GB
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Comments:
Paulo Simões - Sep 3, 2010
Some months ago a I’ve tried to do something on Pipes. I bit tricky but really usefull to build PLE connections… Paulo
Paulo, for very simple use-cases, for example aggregating some RSS feeds, doing some filtering, removing duplicates, pipes is very simple. For more complex manipulations, I think you do need more expertise and some programming experience. I’m very much a beginner! As I mentioned in my post, Tony Hirst (@psychemedia on twitter) is my mentor in this!
Have OPML, will travel…Here’s a recipe from @cogdog about how to Downe’s OPML file and generate a custom search engine that will search over all the specified blogs…:http://cogdogblog.com/2010/04/19/two-timing-xml/And if you want “instant” results from the custom search engine once you’ve created it, @mhawksey can show you how:http://www.rsc-ne-scotland.org.uk/mashe/2010/09/google-custom-instant/
Your screencast was awesome, Chris. I created a dashboard in NetVibes, added it to my Symbaloo homepage and now I’m in the RSS feed business. Thanks so much!
You are very welcome! I have used NetVibes in the past but always went back to Google Reader. Using it to create a dashboard for an on-line course seems a very good idea though and I’ll be experimenting further.
Tony One of the problems with the simple pipe I came up with was the OPML parser block itself. Although Stephen Downes’ OMPL is available as a URL, and therefore in a sense always up to date, the parsing into feeds seems to take too long and the pipe often times out before it can generate results. I need access to the raw data that is being used to create the PLENK2010 daily I think! But thanks for the tips, I’ll follow them up.
Not only did his blog show me how … @mkawksey went and gone and done it! http://www.rsc-ne-scotland.org.uk/mashe/search/plenk2010.html!
Very interesting! I want try to use an aggregator. But to complicated right now. I just added the link to The Daily as a bookmark on my igoogle, to keep the course separated from the rest in the RSS-reader.
This is great work. It is just what I was looking for. I was about to ask you for this kind of help in the plenk moode but got your blog info instead. Much easier to connect here. Thanks much, @chris_saeger
I’m glad it’s been useful.