I have been doing high performance scientific computing in c++ most of my life. I am trying to learn to developing AJAXy web applications. As an exercise, I would like to build something that has a subset of functionality of facebook (profiles, posts with comment threads, friend lists) + the ability to search any post/comment.
I have no experience developing these kind of apps, except minor amount of toying with Google Appengine with GWT+Java and little bit of python. What tools/stack would you suggest using for it? I understand that this a very vague question, but I'd like to get a few opinions and your thought process about how would you go about using it.
How does the choice change, if you want a fast prototype as fast as possible, vs if you are trying to build something that can scale and last a few cycles of feature requests.
To be more specific, I'm lost in questions like, should I consider Drupal, should I consider Lucene for search, Would GWT get me what I want in the UI or would python+django be faster to develop. Probably I should not over think and pick something. But some perspective from others would be nice.
If you have started out with Python, that might be the easiest to get going with, especially since you have some experience with Google's App Engine already. However, if you have spent most of your time working with C++ ... did you know that C++ has at least two different full-stack web frameworks?
CppCMS
Wt (WebToolkit)
Remember, it's what you develop fastest in that makes the difference in the long run. What will slow you down most of all is dealing with what you dislike. So, if long compile times kill you, then try Python, Ruby, PHP, or some other dynamic language. If having code that is less than perfectly optimized (and slower that it could be) is what bothers you most, use C++, C#, or Java instead.
One disadvantage with google app engine is that there is no CMS like drupal or Joomla for google app engine so you're going to have to write your own if you want some of that functionality. The advantages of google app engine however outweigh the disadvantage since you have easier development, easier deployment, won't have to fiddle with phpmyadmin or other ugly sql interfaces, with app engine you also leverage google's huge infrastructure and since it's cloud computing you only pay for what you use. If you want something you as a developer will be most happy about - then I recommend you choose Google App Engine.
Is there an open source, reference implementation of a simple, correctly designed, best practiced, GWT + GAE open source application? I would like to see the best practices on the following:
Recommended GWT Page navigation, session handling
GWT best practice UI (validation, controls etc)
Work with detached objects, conversations, wizards
Effective and "as intended" integration between GWT and GAE
MVC implementation with GWT and GAE, where is the controller? (Spring?)
Using domain POJOs in the UI without writing data transfer objects?
JDO (or JPA) and DAO layer - correct mapping, transaction and service layers
A permission layer, (e.g. like Spring security/ACEGI)
Integration with client side libraries (JQuery / Sancha)
JUnit layer for both server and client side
All the samples I found so far handled a very narrow aspect of the above, and I'm sure there has to be one good "starting point" such as the one's you can find for Spring / Hibernate or RoR projects
Have you looked at Roo?
This can be used to quickly build a GWT app based on one of a number of JPA providers and databases.
It doesn't offer all the items listed but has quite a variety of optional add-ons
Unfortunately I don't know of any such reference implementation, and I don't think you're likely to find such an all-encompassing example is because:
It's much easier to understand an example that focuses on one thing, like focusing on using JDO in a GWT app, or using Spring security in a GWT app, or how to do client-side validation in a GWT app. There's no reason one sample has to include such disparate features.
In the same vein, what if I wanted this exact list of features in a reference implementation, but using something else instead of JDO? Should I expect someone to write everything all over again, with that one part replaced? It's much better to write samples and documentation for each piece of the puzzle and leave it up to developers to glue that knowledge together.
Some of the things you listed aren't exactly common usages, e.g., integration with JQuery and Sencha. That's not to say it's not possible, and there are some (focused) examples out there if you look, but it's not the main use case for GWT developers, so I don't think it makes sense in a reference implementation.
The sort of app you're talking about is very complex, something that would take multiple engineers months to write and then would have to be maintained and updated. All for a sample? Some people aren't willing to invest that kind of energy even when there's money involved!
That being said, there are some great GWT sample apps (with source available) here. Even though they don't encompass everything you listed, they'll hopefully be helpful.
There is a "Google App Engine Java and GWT Application Development" A code of the application they build during the book comes "Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0" so (I guess this is qualify as open source but IANAL) it worth looking at. At least it does helps me as I am working through the same set of questions. It written Nov 2010 so it is still relevant as Google Platform evolves at astonishing speed.
Declaimer - I got no relation to this book except that I am reading it.
I'm going to create a fairly large (from my point of view anyway) web project with a friend. We will create a site with roads and other road related info.
Our calculations is that we will have around 100k items in our database. Each item will contain some information like location, name etc. (about 30 thing each). We are counting on having a few hundred thousand unique visitors per month.
The 100k items and their locations (that will be searchable) will be the main part of the page but we will also have some articles, comments, news and later on some more social functions (accounts, forums, picture uploads etc.).
We were going to use Google AppEngine to develop our project since it is really scalable and free (at least for a while). But I'm actually starting to doubt that AppEngine is right for us. It seems to be for webbapps and not sites like ours.
Which system (language/framework etc.) would you guys recommend us to use? It doesn't really mater if we know the language since before (we like learning new stuff) but it would be good if it's something that is future proof.
I think that GAE can do the job. Google claims that Google App Engine is able to handle 5 million visitors for free and you will have to start paying only if you exceed their free quota.
It's also pretty easy to get started. If you don't have experience on administrating websites and choose a regular hosting service, you will have to worry about several things that you don't even imagine now.
My only concern would be with respect of the kind of data and queries you will have to do, since it does not have a relational database. Anyway, there is an open source project for GAE, called GeoModel that gives GAE the ability to do complex geo spacial queries, like proximity fetch. Have a look at their tutorial and the demo app.
About your impression that GAE was intended only for small web apps, there are a couple of CMS that run on it.
Good luck!
If once of your concerns is scalability, and you don't want to depend on expensive or commercial tools, I would recommend that you take a look at this tech stack:
Erlang - A programming language designed for concurrency and distribution.
Nitrogen - An Erlang web framework with a lot of cool stuff, like transparent AJAX.
NoSQL scalable databases, such as CouchDB or Riak - Save the the hassle of SQL code and are more scalable than plain MySQL. Both has direct native Erlang API.
To be honest, I don't know if this tool set is your cup of tea; These are not mainstream solutions. I just suggest these to everyone who ask about size-sensitive web applications.
All serious web frameworks will provide you with what you need. The real issues (for example scalability) might be tackled in a different way depending on what you use, but you wont be limited if you choose a well-known one. The choice of database system might be more important for that (sql vs nosql), even if both of those will do fine too.
It's all about
knowing how to use
enjoying to use
the tool(s) you've chosen.
In either case, name-dropping some suggestions:
Rails (Ruby)
Django (Python)
Nitrogen (Erlang)
ASP.NET MVC (C#)
And please note, if you really want to learn everything from the bottom, you'd be fine with any of these (or one of the other gazillion out there). But if you want to perform your best, choose one that supports a language you know well or uses techniques/tools you have experience of etc. Think twice about how you value this is fun and we learn a lot against we want to be productive and do a really good job.
I am trying to scrape some website and republish the data as a RSS feed. How hard is this to setup with Google App Engine? Disadvantages and Advantages using GAE. Any recommendations and guidelines greatly appreciated!
Google AppEngine offers much more functionality (and complexity) than you will need if truly all you will want to do is republish some structured data as RSS.
Personally, I would use something like Yahoo pipes for a task like this.
That being said... if you want/need to get your feet wet with GAE, go for it!
Working with Google App Engine is pretty straight forward. I would recommend going through the Getting Started guide. It's short and simple and touches on essential GAE topics. There are more pros and cons than I will list here.
Pros:
In general, App Engine is designed for high traffic web applications that need to scale. Furthermore, it is designed from a programmer's perspective. Much of the scalability issues (database optimization, server administration, etc) are dealt with by Google. Having said that, I find it to be a nice platform. It is still being actively developed by Google engineers, and scheduling of tasks (a feature that has been long requested) is in the current road map.
Cons:
Perhaps the biggest downside right now is again the lack of official scheduling support and the quota limits currently set for free accounts. However you can't complain much if its free. Currently it only supports Python as a programming interface (although a new language [Java I predict] is coming soon). Furthermore, Python 2.6 (and 3.0 for that matter) are not yet supported. In addition, Django 1.0 is not officially supported in App Engine (although you can package Django 1.0 with your application).
Harder than it would be in most other technologies.
GAE can sort of do scheduled batch stuff like this now, but it's really not intended for that type of thing. Pick pretty much any other language and platform for this particular task, and you'll make your life a lot easier.
I think BeautifulSoup could run on GAE, so all your scraping needs are handled :D
Also, GAE has a geturl thingy. The only problem I think you might have is not having enough time to get the data (30 secs limitation).
I am working on a same project and I've decided that it's easier to prepare the data on another server and push them to GAE.
You might also want to look into Yahoo! Query Language (YQL)
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 3 years ago.
Improve this question
Is anyone out there* using web2py?
Specifically:
In production?
With what database?
With Google Application Engine?
by "out there" I mean at stackoverflow.
You are welcome to ask the same question on the google group. You will find more than 500 users there and some of them are development companies building projects for their clients.
My impression is that most of them use postgresql (that's what I do to) and some others use the Google App Engine. In fact web2py is the only framework that allows you to write code once and the same code will run on GAE, SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MSSQL and FireBird (with the limitations imposed by GAE).
You can find the Reddish (reddit clone) appliance with source code for GAE here
Here you can find links to some productions app. Some are running on GAE.
#Armin:
Nothing is wrong with Django or Pylons. They are excellent frameworks. I have used them before developing web2py. There are a few things you can do with web2py that you cannot with them. For example:
web2py does distributed transactions with Postgresql, Armin requested this feature.
the Django ORM does not do migrations natively (see South), web2py does.
the Django ORM does not allow partial sums (count(field)) and group by, web2py does.
web2py can connect to multiple databases at once, Django and Pylons need to be hacked to do that, and
web2py has a configuration file at the app, not at the project level, like them.
webp2y logs all tracebacks server side for the administrator, Django and Pylons do not.
web2py programs often run on GAE unmodified.
web2py has built-in xmlrpc web services.
web2py comes with jQuery.
There are many things that web2py does better (using a more coherent API) and faster (processing templates and generating SQL for example). web2py is also very compact (all modules fit in 265K bytes) and therefore it is much easier to maintain than those competing projects.
You only have to learn Python and 81 new function/classes (50 of which have the same names and attributes as corresponding HTML tags, BR, DIV, SPAN, etc. and 19 are validators, IS_IN_SET, IS_INT_IN_RANGE, etc.).
Anyway, the most important issue is that web2py is easier than Django, Pylons, PHP and Rails.
You will also notice that web2py is hosted on both Google Code and Launchpad and there are not open tickets. All past issues have been resolved in less than 24 hours.
You can also check on the google mailing list that all threads (10056 messages today) ended up with an answer from me or one of the other developers within 24 hours.
You can find a book on web2py on Amazon.
Armin, I know you are the developer of Jinja. I like Jinja but have different design philosophies. Both Django and Jinja define their own template languages (and Jinja in particular has excellent documentation) but I do prefer to use pure Python in templates so that my users do no need to learn a template language at all. I am well aware of the pros and cons of each approach. Let's the users decide what they prefer. No need to criticize each other.
#Andre: db.table.field refers to the field object. 'table.field' is a field name. You can always pass a field object when a field name is required because str(db.table.field) is 'table.field'. The only case you are required to use a string instead of an object is when you need to reference by name a field that has not already been defined... perhaps we should move this discussion to the proper place. ;-)
I hope you will decide to give web2py a try and, whether you like it or not, I would love to hear your opinion.
I'm using web2py for a small web app. It's running the HITs on a Mechanical Turk project, and giving me an interface to control and visualize them. I started on Google App Engine, but then got sick of the little annoyances of not having direct database access and having to wait forever each time I want to upload my code, and moved to a local server with postgres. GAE makes most things harder in order to make a few scaling things easier... stay away from it unless you really need their scaling help.
I like web2py a lot. Compared to Django and Ruby on Rails, it's WAY easier to learn and get going. Everything is simple. You get stuff done fast. Massimo is everywhere solving your problems (even on this board haha).
I started using web2py about 6 month ago. I choose it, because I wanted to move from PHP to Python, to have a more object-oriented approch because of the language featrues of python.
The all-in-one approach of web2py is really amazing and makes the start very fast.
As a former symfony user I soon started to miss Components and Forms that aren't dependend on table structure.
Just with a simple registration form, I could not find a way to do the Form DRY. For me the real bugger was the form validation. I forgot the details, but I ended up with having form validation in the forms itself. Because some thing just didn't work else.
Also the naming concept of capitalised words with that lot of repeated chars is just not my thing.
dba.users.name.requires=IS_NOT_EMPTY()
dba.users.email.requires=[IS_EMAIL(), IS_NOT_IN_DB(dba,'users.email')]
dba.dogs.owner_id.requires=IS_IN_DB(dba,'users.id','users.name')
dba.dogs.name.requires=IS_NOT_EMPTY()
dba.dogs.type.requires=IS_IN_SET(['small','medium','large'])
dba.purchases.buyer_id.requires=IS_IN_DB(dba,'users.id','users.name')
dba.purchases.product_id.requires=IS_IN_DB(dba,'products.id','products.name')
dba.purchases.quantity.requires=IS_INT_IN_RANGE(0,10)
Sometimes the names have to be in quotes, sometimes not ... and if I looked at the examples or sites already made with web2py, I really didn't see that big step forward from using php.
I recommend you: Look if web2py works for you. It would be nice, because the community and especially massimo (the creator) are very helpful and nice.
Also you have a much quicker start, than with django, easier deployment and less hassle if you change your database models.
As Massimo points out above, the team at tenthrow uses web2py for tenthrow.com
We did most of our development work during 2009. Our stack uses cherokee, web2py, postgresql, and amazon s3. We had done many python web implementations prior to this on a variety of frameworks and backends. To say that we simply could not have done tenthrow so quickly and easily without web2py is an understatement. It's the best kept secret in web development.
I am evaluating web frameworks for a long time now. I wrote my own (not open) frameworks in Perl and in PHP. Well, PHP has a builtin deadend and the whole infrastructure is still quite poor, but I did not want to go back to Perl, so I checked Python and the Python Web Frameworks like Django, Turbogears, Pylon and web2py. There are many things to think about, if you want to choose a codestack that is not your own and you will often scratch your head because there is still no "right way" to program things. However, web2py is my current favourite, because the author, despite beeing a "real programmer", keeps things easy! Just look at the comparison on web2py site - I was wondering why python frameworks like django or turbogears had to introduce such redundance and complicated syntax in their code - web2py shows, that it IS in fact possible to keep your syntax clean and easy!
#Armin: could you please specify you criticism? Where exactly do you see web2py "bypassing Python semantics"? I can not understand, what you mean. I must admit that I am not that deep into python right now, but I see no problem with the web2py code - in fact, I think it is brilliant and one of the best frameworks available today.
I use web2py for academic purposes. About a year ago I published on pythonanywhere a digital text book for german grammar.
The resource requires authentication and looks like a little LMS with roles, activities and grades. It was my first experience of this kind. And it was a success because PHP was to difficult for me, and only web2py could provide a clear way to handle a database. With Python I could easily solve my problems as e. g. text analysis and downloading reports. As for database so SQLite was completely enough.
My students like the design and the way everything is functioning. So I am very satisfied with the results and going to develop other interesting applications for my university.
I think web2py is very good for applied linguists and L2 teachers, who are not as experienced in computer science as programmers. So that was my humble opinion.
There are some users listed here: http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/who.
I'm starting to use it with Postgresql. But a long way off production... I've also played with Zope V2 and Ruby on Rails and really love the approach of web2py.
I vote for Web2py. I only have time to develop small but useful stuff for my own use.
Hopefully next month I will have an oppty to create an app that is perfect for Web2py and run on Google app engine.
Web2py = breath of fresh air!
We are using it with our website that teachers Chinese, www.dominochinese.com. Our host is pythonanywhere.com and we love the simplicity of it. I work on building stuff instead of wishing I could get stuff working. I worked with django for 1.5 years and I hated it. In a sense I feel web2py is the PHP but in python. It makes people quickly do stuff without going into object oriented programming, which can be really confusing for beginners to intermediate programmers.
I am not using web2py. But I had a look at the source code and it's horrible for so many reasons. For one the database definitions as well as the views and models and I don't know what, are evaluated against a global dictionary of values. It feels like PHP in that regard (it's bypassing Python semantics in name behaviour) and is very inefficient and I could imagine that it's hard to maintain.
I have no idea where all that fuzz about web2py is coming from lately, but I really can't see a reason why anyone would want to use it.
What's wrong with Django or Pylons? What does web2py do that you can't do with Django in a few lines of code with a better performance, code that's easier to read and on an established platform where tons of developers will jump in and fix problems in no time if they appear. (Well, there are exceptions I must admit, but in general the developers fix problems quickly)
I am using web2py for 2 years, this web frameworks is great and unique. Easy to use, accept a lot of DB's but the best DB supported is postgres.
I have created 2 projects with web2py and a really like how easy it is. 1 project is a financial management and other a mail tracker, both in production systems (4 linux lpar with postgres) running fine.
web2py is a good choice
[small application created with web2py 2.5.1]
updated
http://freitasmgustavo.pythonanywhere.com/calculoST/
Actually it's using MySQL, but it could switch to postgresql at a moments notice as web2py is so diverse :)
I have been evaluating web frameworks for sometime now. I prefer web2py because it's easy to follow, compact yet powerful.
I like it because it is so tiny that I can easily distribute with my application.
We started to use Web2py 7 months ago. We already have one application in production in El Prado (National Museum in Spain). We developed a app to check and automate all the systems, to make servers statistics, access statistics, etc.
I use it in production on Google Appengine for www.crowdgrader.org.
I store data as follows:
The core metadata, where I need ACID, is stored in Google Cloud SQL, which is working very well for me. For big text fields, I store in Google Cloud SQL the key, and in the Datastore the key-value.
The text typed by users is stored in the Google Datastore, see above, with the key stored in Cloud SQL.
File uploads go in the blobstore.
I am slowly migrating more storage to the Datastore, to get more write bandwidth for things that do not require complex queries and can deal with a bit of eventual consistency.
I am very happy about web2py + appengine + Google Cloud SQL + Datastore + Blobstore.
I am using web2py in production with postgres on webfaction, and also on the GAE.
I used web2py for small projects so far, but I hope to introduce it in my company. It's my favorite web framework.
My blog is running on GAE with web2py.
I also have a facebook apps running on top of web2py: My Top 10 Gift
I use Web2py with Google App Engine in production. See https://www.nittiolearn.com.
For storing data, Google Datastore (accessed via web2py DAL) is used except for storing large resources where Google Cloud Storage is used. I have done multiple web2py version upgrades on the production environment in the last 5 years without any major issues.
Google app engine has also been mostly friction-free over the years.
But neither Web2py nor Google app engine has been adopted widely as I had thought 5-6 years ago. If I'm starting a new project, I'm unlikely to go with web2py or app engine as the number of developers who will be excited to work on these technologies is limited.
I am using web2py with gae and google datastore in production of custom application , it is a very good framework.
I did made some minor fixes for work good on GAE, work fast and stable, i have published the Web2Py version changes uses on my github soyharso.
The uploads to GAE are fast, the version control app engine is secure, the free tier offer google for tuning your code is excellent, the monthly cost is adequate
Well, I am using Web2Py professionally, with PostgreSQL, and on linux. I am working on my Social network named "Ourway". You may like some features of it like "Blog" part.
http://www.noobmusic.com is using the Google App Engine.
I am using web2py in production. Currently while in early production we are developing with SQLite because it is easy and it comes out of the box but later we will probably switch to MySQL. I don' think there are any plans to use Google App Engine.
This are quite old responses but I will chip in anyway. In the year 2008 maybe it was excellent choice, as well as Django/Flask. And it still might be good.
But this days people want instant results, with a way less learning curve.
The web2py is not that intuitive to be fair.
Do I need to study MVC concepts for working with MS Access? I could not care less for URL routing, just need to display a few tables on the web, preferably with some validation. Plus some authentication.
This is where framework like http://jam-py.com/ shines! Not only that you wont be lost, but it does remind of Access which ruled the offices for like decades. And still rules in 2019. Why? Almost no learning curve.