mdipierro

There are two types of workflow engines: sequential and finite state machines. The latter is more general and includes the former. In a finite state machine external event let you move through the nodes of a graph. The present node is the state. In workflow.py the creation/update of a file is the external event. The state is also characterized by the files present in the file system. The change of state is associated to the execution of a program. I agree it is a little different than what people are used to and I am not arguing semantics. It was useful to me. Hope it is useful to others. That is all. I will be happy to take patches to improve functionality.

Eventually it should be rewritten to use pyinotify. For now it was good enough for my needs.

From my prospective if one likes the web2py libraries, one should use just web2py and not other frameworks. Some web2py users have also complained: what's the point? I think the point is that everybody could learn something from trying to use different tools. I have learned a lot about the other frameworks just trying to implement this. I think others could learn something too from just reading the example code.

Point me to one SQLAlchemy example that you think has no web2py DAL equivalent and I will try show you otherwise.

and of course this is a completely neutral and unbiased suggestion. LOL

If you use web2py, web2py does that for example here is complete code to create a page that lets user post messages and read previous messages.

    m=db.define_table('message',Field('body'))
    def index():
        return dict(form=crud.create(m),rows=db(m).select())

It runs on GAE as it is (requires the scaffolding app).

I think you want this: http://vimeo.com/13485916

This is based on a web2py which has a full web based IDE although the web2py web based IDE does not run on GAE because of GAE file system limitation. cube2py has a partial workaround by storing everything in the database. Still before you run it GAE you have to run the code locally to create the indexes.

Why? Don't you like Star Trek?

For the record. They tested web.py not web2py. It is not the same thing and they are completely unrelated.

Both Rails and web2py follow "convention over configuration" while Django follows "configuration over convention". Each has pros and cons but coming from a Rails background you'll probably find web2py closer.

not acknowledging actual competitors is a marketing strategy.

Agee except for the "own" term. About 100 people have contributed/are contributing to web2py.

Mostly: - Group Based Access Control: login, logout, registration, etc. - CRUD - Built portable CRON capability - More powerful DAL - Read only forms - runs on Jython and IronPython (except for web server, lack of csv module, and third party database adaptors)

Sorry.

By the way... I think you cannot even define "best of breed" since requirements are subjective. You can only list specific issues where one system is better than another.

By the way... I think you cannot even define "best of breed" since requirements are subjective. You can only list specific issues where one system is better than another.

I do not know him personally and judging from his programs I agree that he is one of the smartest programmers out there.

Yet, who determines what the best of breed is? How much time have you spent evaluated the web2py DAL vs SQLAlchemy to reach this conclusion? Or are you basing your judgement solely on the fact that SQLAlchemy has been out there longer and therefore it is more popular?

If you have pros/cons about web2py vs SQLAlchemy I would like to hear some concrete examples. They could help us improve it.

Who determines what the best of breed is? Is SQLAlchemy the best of breed because it predates web2py? Then SQLObjects is the best of breed ORM. Kudos to SQLAlchemy because I learned a lot from it and it is a good product. It is just too verbose for my taste.

It runs on Jython and IronPython.

It can read SQLAlchemy models (has a compatibility module)

It can read Django models, including validators (has a compatibility module)

It can use Jinja2 and Genshi and any any other template language.

Although I do not really see why anybody would want to do such things.

You can use SQLAlchemy with it as you can use any Python package you like but...

1) The web2py DAL is designed to work with SQLFORM. SQLAlchemy is not. By using SQLAlchemy you would be using web2py more or less like you would use Pylons, thus missing a lot of the extra stuff that web2py does for you (and that you do not see because you think SQLAlchemy).

2) It is internal DAL is comparable and in some cases better than SQLAlchemy because is smaller, faster, and it works on the Google App Engine. By using SQLAlchemy your web2py programs would not run on GAE.

3) web2py users like the web2py DAL better than SQLAlchemy. That is why hey use web2py.

We are not reinventing the wheel. We are just building a better wheel that runs faster and is easier to spin. We are not reinventing the wheel any more or less than any other framework did.

Before investing time in learning a new language you may want to consider other "features" of a web framework that may help you choose. For example, give a try to web2py since it does not require installation (just unzip and starts). It includes sqlite and ssl enabled web server. You can do all development and maintenance via the web interface. In 5 minutes you should be able to write a simple app like:

    def hello(): return "Hello %s" % request.vars.name

Then you decide if it is worth your time to learn the language. Usually learning the APIs of a framework take more time than learning the language it is based on.

Java remains is the most popular programming language out there but the number of Java programmers exceeds the number of jobs for available to those Java programmers. That is not true for c++, Python, Ruby. I know because the career center at the university I work for tells me so. The question is: do you what to be a small fish swimming in a shrinking large pond or a big fish swimming in a growing small pong?

web2py and web.py are completely different animals, but they both eat pythons.

In the case of web2py there is an object called XML, text passed to the view inside XML is not escaped otherwise it is. You can also do XML(text,sanitize=True) and you can specify which tags and with tag attributes should be allowed. The sanitizer that ships with web2py is the one developed by Josh Goldfoot and posted on activestate, recipe 496942.

Here is the table of content and some sample chapters: http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/examples/static/web2py_manual_cut....

You can easily modify KPAX (http://www.vimeo.com/1098656) to do what you need, and more. kpax is based on web2py (http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu) and you can download it from here (http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/appliances/default/show/37).This (http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/AlterEgo/default/show/99) shows how to add captcha. I will help you more if you sign up for the web2py google group.

Here are a few things that you can do with web2py but not Django: upload/download streaming (as in deal with files larger than fit in ram), connect to multiple database, use pure python in templates, give tickets to visitors on error, develop and maintain your web sites via a web interface, run the ORM in Google App Engine. There are also many apps you can get here http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/appliances

way to go pystar!