Web micro-framework BATTLE!

webMonday, 22 August 2011

web micro-frameworkMonday, 22 August 2011

web micro-framework Ba!le!Monday, 22 August 2011

akaMonday, 22 August 2011

aka Richard surveys the landscape so you (probably) don’t have toMonday, 22 August 2011

IntroductionMonday, 22 August 2011I primarily develop systems for routing calls and texts, and provisioning phone numbers and things like that. I also maintain websites, butI’m not talking about those today. I’m talking about HTTP as a layer for connecting my systems.

Introduction • I write code for a telcoMonday, 22 August 2011I primarily develop systems for routing calls and texts, and provisioning phone numbers and things like that. I also maintain websites, butI’m not talking about those today. I’m talking about HTTP as a layer for connecting my systems.

Introduction • I write code for a telco • Lots of discrete system applicationsMonday, 22 August 2011I primarily develop systems for routing calls and texts, and provisioning phone numbers and things like that. I also maintain websites, butI’m not talking about those today. I’m talking about HTTP as a layer for connecting my systems.

Introduction • I write code for a telco • Lots of discrete system applications • Connected through HTTPMonday, 22 August 2011I primarily develop systems for routing calls and texts, and provisioning phone numbers and things like that. I also maintain websites, butI’m not talking about those today. I’m talking about HTTP as a layer for connecting my systems.

Introduction • I write code for a telco • Lots of discrete system applications • Connected through HTTP • I write little HTTP servers all the timeMonday, 22 August 2011I primarily develop systems for routing calls and texts, and provisioning phone numbers and things like that. I also maintain websites, butI’m not talking about those today. I’m talking about HTTP as a layer for connecting my systems.

Introduction • I write code for a telco • Lots of discrete system applications • Connected through HTTP • I write little HTTP servers all the time • I’ve written half a dozen micro-frameworksMonday, 22 August 2011I primarily develop systems for routing calls and texts, and provisioning phone numbers and things like that. I also maintain websites, butI’m not talking about those today. I’m talking about HTTP as a layer for connecting my systems.

What’s IN?Monday, 22 August 2011“standard lib”, access to form vars, redirection (with raise), OO/REST-ish app with GET/POST, WSGI so it’s easy to serve and getmiddleware. Downloadable docs for ofﬂine development are a real bonus.

What’s IN? • easy to understand and use (docs, minimal magic, no surprises, terse)Monday, 22 August 2011“standard lib”, access to form vars, redirection (with raise), OO/REST-ish app with GET/POST, WSGI so it’s easy to serve and getmiddleware. Downloadable docs for ofﬂine development are a real bonus.

What’s IN? • easy to understand and use (docs, minimal magic, no surprises, terse) • HTTP request/responseMonday, 22 August 2011“standard lib”, access to form vars, redirection (with raise), OO/REST-ish app with GET/POST, WSGI so it’s easy to serve and getmiddleware. Downloadable docs for ofﬂine development are a real bonus.

What’s IN? • easy to understand and use (docs, minimal magic, no surprises, terse) • HTTP request/response • URL routing (“RESTful”)Monday, 22 August 2011“standard lib”, access to form vars, redirection (with raise), OO/REST-ish app with GET/POST, WSGI so it’s easy to serve and getmiddleware. Downloadable docs for ofﬂine development are a real bonus.

What’s IN? • easy to understand and use (docs, minimal magic, no surprises, terse) • HTTP request/response • URL routing (“RESTful”) • WSGIMonday, 22 August 2011“standard lib”, access to form vars, redirection (with raise), OO/REST-ish app with GET/POST, WSGI so it’s easy to serve and getmiddleware. Downloadable docs for ofﬂine development are a real bonus.

What’s IN? • easy to understand and use (docs, minimal magic, no surprises, terse) • HTTP request/response • URL routing (“RESTful”) • WSGI • PyPy and Python 3...Monday, 22 August 2011“standard lib”, access to form vars, redirection (with raise), OO/REST-ish app with GET/POST, WSGI so it’s easy to serve and getmiddleware. Downloadable docs for ofﬂine development are a real bonus.

What’s OUT?Monday, 22 August 2011I like dbapiext / explicitness; SQLAlchemy works plenty well; templating is handled by other things (though some frameworks havesomething built-in)

What’s OUT? • Object-Relational Manager (actually, any sort of DB wrapper)Monday, 22 August 2011I like dbapiext / explicitness; SQLAlchemy works plenty well; templating is handled by other things (though some frameworks havesomething built-in)

What’s OUT? • Object-Relational Manager (actually, any sort of DB wrapper) • Template engineMonday, 22 August 2011I like dbapiext / explicitness; SQLAlchemy works plenty well; templating is handled by other things (though some frameworks havesomething built-in)

Who’s out? • Mega Frameworks: django, grok, pyramid, web2py, zope • CubicWeb (never heard of it) • milla (too young / incomplete) • pump (too late to include) • routes+webob (too complicated)Monday, 22 August 2011

WIKIMonday, 22 August 2011In the following theres some core wiki code which is used to manipulate the wiki storage and render pages. When I wrote the wiki apps Ialso implemented history and reversion to reinforce each framework’s approach, but I’ve left that out of these slides in the interests ofbrevity.

WIKI • page view (GET /PageName)Monday, 22 August 2011In the following theres some core wiki code which is used to manipulate the wiki storage and render pages. When I wrote the wiki apps Ialso implemented history and reversion to reinforce each framework’s approach, but I’ve left that out of these slides in the interests ofbrevity.

WIKI • page view (GET /PageName) • creation, editing (GET & POST /edit)Monday, 22 August 2011In the following theres some core wiki code which is used to manipulate the wiki storage and render pages. When I wrote the wiki apps Ialso implemented history and reversion to reinforce each framework’s approach, but I’ve left that out of these slides in the interests ofbrevity.

WIKI • page view (GET /PageName) • creation, editing (GET & POST /edit) • redirect (GET /)Monday, 22 August 2011In the following theres some core wiki code which is used to manipulate the wiki storage and render pages. When I wrote the wiki apps Ialso implemented history and reversion to reinforce each framework’s approach, but I’ve left that out of these slides in the interests ofbrevity.

WIKI • page view (GET /PageName) • creation, editing (GET & POST /edit) • redirect (GET /) • not found (GET /favicon.ico)Monday, 22 August 2011In the following theres some core wiki code which is used to manipulate the wiki storage and render pages. When I wrote the wiki apps Ialso implemented history and reversion to reinforce each framework’s approach, but I’ve left that out of these slides in the interests ofbrevity.

The Contenders • cgi+wsgiref • aspen.io • bobo • bottle • cherrypy • ﬂask • itty • pesto • web.py • werkzeugMonday, 22 August 201110 frameworks, cgi+wsgiref is my baseline

The Criteria • documentation • ease of use • magic • RESTful • WSGI • Python 3 • PyPy • amount of typing • size of the frameworkMonday, 22 August 2011Just to recap, this is what I’m looking for.

1. cgi&wsgirefMonday, 22 August 2011DOCUMENTATION: just the standard library, EASE OF USE: a bit of work but not hard, EXTRAS: none, MAGIC: no, RESTful: no, WSGI:yes

cgi+wsgiref simple WSGI app class NotFound(Exception): pass class Redirect(Exception): def __init__(self, location): self.location = location def app(environ, start_response): headers = [(Content-type, text/html)] status = 200 OK try: for p, m, c in urls: if m != environ[REQUEST_METHOD]: continue m = re.match(p, environ[PATH_INFO]) if m is None: continue response = c(environ, **m.groupdict()) raise NotFound except NotFound: status = 404 Not Found response = Not found: %s % environ[PATH_INFO] except Redirect, e: status = 301 Moved Permanently headers.append((Location, e.location)) response = start_response(status, headers) return responseMonday, 22 August 2011No top-level app in wsgiref, so I had to write my own. This, by the way, is why Ive written a half a dozen web frameworks.

cgi+wsgiref simple WSGI app def app(environ, start_response): headers = [(Content-type, text/html)] status = 200 OK try: for p, m, c in urls: if m != environ[REQUEST_METHOD]: continue m = re.match(p, environ[PATH_INFO]) if m is None: continue response = c(environ, **m.groupdict()) raise NotFound except NotFound: status = 404 Not Found response = Not found: %s % environ[PATH_INFO] except Redirect, e: status = 301 Moved Permanently headers.append((Location, e.location)) response = start_response(status, headers) return responseMonday, 22 August 2011These are the WSGI bits.

cgi+wsgiref simple WSGI app def app(environ, start_response): headers = [(Content-type, text/html)] status = 200 OK try: for p, m, c in urls: if m != environ[REQUEST_METHOD]: continue m = re.match(p, environ[PATH_INFO]) if m is None: continue response = c(environ, **m.groupdict()) raise NotFound except NotFound: status = 404 Not Found response = Not found: %s % environ[PATH_INFO] except Redirect, e: status = 301 Moved Permanently headers.append((Location, e.location)) response = start_response(status, headers) return responseMonday, 22 August 2011Given a list of potential actions containing a URL pattern to match, a request method and a callable, we see which one to call, if any.

cgi+wsgiref actions def index(environ): raise Redirect(/FrontPage) def page(environ, name): if not storage.wikiname_re.match(name): raise NotFound return wiki.render_page(name) def edit_form(environ, name): return wiki.render_edit_form(name) def edit(environ, name): fields = cgi.FieldStorage(fp=environ[wsgi.input], environ=environ) if submit in fields: wiki.store_page(name, fields.getfirst(content)) raise Redirect("/%s" % name)Monday, 22 August 2011Handling forms is manual, of course.

cgi+wsgiref url mapping urls = [ (^/$, GET, index), (^/(?P<name>w+)/?$, GET, page), (^/(?P<name>w+)/edit$, GET, edit_form), (^/(?P<name>w+)/edit$, POST, edit), ]Monday, 22 August 2011Finally we construct our list of potential handlers.

cgi+wsgiref serving HTTP server = wsgiref.simple_server.make_server(127.0.0.1, 8080, app) server.serve_forever()Monday, 22 August 2011

2. boboMonday, 22 August 2011bobo started out life as an awesome object publisher (get attributes and items) and then it became Zope. sadly as Zope grew, so bobo wastainted and now it’s not the simple publisher it once was. DOCUMENTATION: limited and focused on The Bobo Way - EASE OF USE: itsjust not straight-forward, cant just create an app and publish it - I must publish a module ﬁle!?!

bobo index @bobo.query(/) def index(): return bobo.redirect("/FrontPage")Monday, 22 August 2011Simple enough. MAGIC: bobo ... that’s the module. Decorating for scanning. I did have some transient, unexplained trouble with thisredirect ending up at “/FrontPage/”. There also doesn’t appear to be a redirect exception.

bobo /PageName @bobo.subroute(/:name?, scan=True) class Page(object): def __init__(self, request, name=None): if not storage.wikiname_re.match(name): raise bobo.NotFound(/%s % name) self.name = name @bobo.query() def index(self): return wiki.render_page(name)Monday, 22 August 2011RESTful: quite confusing bobo.route()/bobo.subroute() request method in decorator. So here we’re setting up a “sub”route directing theURLs starting with that pattern to the decorated class (any callable will do). Instances of the class will be created being passed the namefrom the URL pattern. the docs seemed to imply that @bobo.query with no args would expose the function named - but that didn’twork. scan? wha? well, without it the decorations in the class aren’t ... known.

bobo index AttributeError: Page instance has no attribute bobo_responseMonday, 22 August 2011without scan I get this bizarro error

bobo /PageName/edit @bobo.query(/edit, GET) def edit(self): return wiki.render_edit_form(name) @bobo.post(/edit, POST) def do_edit(self, content, submit=False): if submit: wiki.store_page(self.name, content) return bobo.redirect("/%s" % self.name)Monday, 22 August 2011Again the docs seemed to lie. @post needs that “POST” argument or it gets both GET AND POST. PRO: uses WebOb request/response.

bobo running the app if __name__ == "__main__": import boboserver boboserver.server([-f, __file__])Monday, 22 August 2011And then we serve the application by pointing boboserver at the what now? We publish the module ﬁle? This is pretty wacky. WSGI:kinda (paste deploy) - no idea how to plug into my own WSGI server. I poked and poked at the source and could not ﬁgure how to get aWSGI application.

3. cherrypyMonday, 22 August 2011OK, so from the ﬁrst example this looks to be a little different to others - kinda close to bobo by publishing objects and methods. But it’snot RESTish. DOCS: pro: uses Sphinx, con: a bit light-on in some places. The default dispatcher doesnt make RESTish control easy so Imusing a RESTish MethodDispatcher, but the only documentation for it is a simple example which doesnt really explain things in muchdetail. I guessed at some of the semantics, and it worked!

cherrypy index @cherrypy.popargs(name) class Wiki(object): exposed = True def GET(self, name=None): if not name: raise cherrypy.HTTPRedirect("/FrontPage") if not storage.wikiname_re.match(name): raise cherrypy.NotFound(/%s % name) return wiki.render_page(name) edit = WikiEdit()Monday, 22 August 2011Docs search found me the HTTPRedirect and NotFound which is nice.Yay Sphinx! “exposed” may be done in a bunch of different ways,not explained clearly in one place AFAICT.

cherrypy edit class WikiEdit(object): exposed = True def GET(self, name): return wiki.render_edit_form(name) def POST(self, name, content=, submit=None, cancel=None): if submit: wiki.store_page(name, content) raise cherrypy.HTTPRedirect("/%s" % name)Monday, 22 August 2011

cherrypy the funky bit conf = { /: { request.dispatch: cherrypy.dispatch.MethodDispatcher(), } } if __name__ == "__main__": cherrypy.quickstart(Wiki(), /, conf)Monday, 22 August 2011EASE OF USE: simple, though the conﬁg bit is a bit strange; ooh, automatic code reloading.; WSGI: I had to google and *then* look at thesource to ﬁnd out how to get a WSGI application: cherrypy.Application, cherrypy.request.wsgi_environ; MAGIC: minimal - just thecherrypy.request module global

4. web.pyMonday, 22 August 2011DOCUMENTATION: great website, easy to get started

web.py index and /PageName class index: def GET(self): raise web.SeeOther("/FrontPage") class page: def GET(self, name): if not storage.wikiname_re.match(name): raise web.NotFound(/%s % name) return wiki.render_page(name)Monday, 22 August 2011RESTful: url mapping through ugly URLs tuple (url, name, url, name, ...) and handler named is class with request method methods GET(),POST(), ...

web.py /PageName/edit class edit: def GET(self, name): return wiki.render_edit_form(name) def POST(self, name): f = web.input(content, submit=False, cancel=False) if f.submit: wiki.store_page(name, f.content) raise web.seeother("/%s" % name)Monday, 22 August 2011DOCS: was hard to ﬁnd how web.input() worked; EASE OF USE: simple enough class-per-URL-match; Form doesnt support submitbuttons?! Forms are a bit of a ﬁddly way to get to simple form submitted data. For this simple case (very much like most of my uses) itsactually easier to access the submitted information directly without involving the Form class through web.input().

web.py serving urls = ( /, index, /(.+)/edit, edit, /(.+), page, ) app = web.application(urls, globals()) if __name__ == "__main__": app.run()Monday, 22 August 2011MAGIC: url mapping through names looked up in globals? Ugh. module-level form input() global; EXTRAS: session, openid, utilities,templating, form and db abstraction; WSGI: hard-to-ﬁnd web.application(...).wsgifunc(*middleware)

5. bo!leMonday, 22 August 2011

bottle index and /PageName @get(/) def index(): redirect("/FrontPage") @get(/:name) def display(name): if not storage.wikiname_re.match(name): abort(404, Not Found :/%s % name) return wiki.render_page(name)Monday, 22 August 2011PRO: SINGLE FILE! bottle.py; EASE OF USE: very simple; CON: MAGIC module global magic for request, response :-( PRO: Has ﬁrst-classget(), post() as well as generic route() which conﬁgure a default app (you can also create other apps). DOCUMENTATION: very good,downloadable

bottle /PageName/edit @get(/:name/edit) def edit_form(name): return wiki.render_edit_form(name) @post(/:name/edit) def edit(name): if request.POST.get(submit): wiki.store_page(name, request.POST[content]) redirect("/%s" % name)Monday, 22 August 2011RESTful: get(), post() decorators which take URL. request.POST has the posted form vars (there’s also request.params which combinesGET and POST vars).

bottle serving HTTP if __name__ == "__main__": run(host=127.0.0.1, port=8080)Monday, 22 August 2011WSGI: Had to look in the source but bottle.default_app.wsgi is WSGI. Bottle also has the concept of an app stack, but I didn’t look intothat and am not sure what the point is. EXTRAS: static ﬁles, adapters (eg werkzeug), SimpleTemplate, lots of convenience utilities

from bottle import get, post, request, run, abort, redirect import storage wiki = storage.Storage(contents) @get(/) def index(): redirect("/FrontPage") @get(/:name) def display(name): if not storage.wikiname_re.match(name): abort(404, Not Found :/%s % name) return wiki.render_page(name) @get(/:name/edit) def edit_form(name): return wiki.render_edit_form(name) @post(/:name/edit) def edit(name): if request.POST.get(submit): wiki.store_page(name, request.POST[content]) redirect("/%s" % name) if __name__ == "__main__": run(host=127.0.0.1, port=8080)Monday, 22 August 2011Seriously, that’s it. That’s all the overhead that bottle imposes when you write a web app with it!

6. i!yMonday, 22 August 2011itty is really similar to bottle. They both aspire to the same simple API.

itty index and /PageName @get(/) def index(request): raise Redirect("/FrontPage") @get(/(?P<name>w+)) def display(request, name): if not storage.wikiname_re.match(name): raise NotFound(/%s % name) return wiki.render_page(name)Monday, 22 August 2011get, Redirect and NotFound imported from itty (from itty import *) MAGIC module globals; DOCS: very little but straightforward andgood examples; EASE OF USE: simple; RESTful: get(), post() decorators which take URL;

itty /PageName/edit @get(/(?P<name>w+)/edit) def edit_form(request, name): return wiki.render_edit_form(name) @post(/(?P<name>w+)/edit) def edit(request, name): if request.POST.get(submit): wiki.store_page(name, request.POST[content]) raise Redirect("/%s" % name)Monday, 22 August 2011request.POST simple enough; CON: Redirects appear in the log with tracebacks??!?

itty serving run_itty()Monday, 22 August 2011WSGI: itty.handle_request (the docs dont make this clear ... and *why* request._environ ??)

7. ﬂaskMonday, 22 August 2011Con: depends on two external libraries: the Jinja2 template engine and the Werkzeug WSGI toolkit. DOCS: very good, and downloadable,though werkzeug references were tricky

ﬂask index and /PageName app = Flask(__name__) @app.route("/") def index(): return redirect("/FrontPage") @app.route(/<name>) def display(name): if not storage.wikiname_re.match(name): raise NotFound(/%s % name) return wiki.render_page(name)Monday, 22 August 2011Where itty and bottle had a single default app that was being conﬁgured, here we explicitly create our app. CON: There appears to be noway to raise a redirect exception. NotFound needs to be imported from werkzeug directly. No way to return a NotFound result? EASEOF USE: requirement to fall back to werkzeug sometimes makes things tricky

ﬂask /PageName/edit @app.route(/<name>/edit, methods=[GET]) def edit_form(name): return wiki.render_edit_form(name) @app.route(/<name>/edit, methods=[POST]) def edit(name): if request.form.get(submit): wiki.store_page(name, request.form[content]) return redirect("/%s" % name)Monday, 22 August 2011Con: in the quickstart, it wasnt clear where request came from. MAGIC: request is module-level global from “ﬂask”; RESTful: requestmethod in app.route() decorator which also takes URL

ﬂask serving app.run(debug=True)Monday, 22 August 2011Pro: debugger works really well; WSGI: the Flask object is a WSGI app; EXTRAS: werkzeug, test support, debugger, secure cookies, Jinja2,shell

8. pestoMonday, 22 August 2011

pesto index and /PageName app = dispatcher_app() @app.match(/, GET) def index(request): return Response.redirect("/FrontPage") @app.match(/<name:unicode>, GET) def display(request, name): if not storage.wikiname_re.match(name): return Response.not_found(/%s % name) page = wiki.render_page(name) return Response(page)Monday, 22 August 2011explicit app creation - nice. DOCUMENTATION: good; EASE OF USE: simple; MAGIC: no magic whatsoever; RESTful: request method inapp.match() decorator which also takes URL; unfortunately can’t just return the page contents from the function, have to wrap it in aResponse.

pesto /PageName/edit @app.match(/<name:unicode>/edit, GET) def edit_form(request, name): page = wiki.render_edit_form(name) return Response(page) @app.match(/<name:unicode>/edit, POST) def edit(request, name): if request.form.get(submit): wiki.store_page(name, request.form[content]) return Response.redirect("/%s" % name)Monday, 22 August 2011Very, very similar to itty and bottle... the type is not optional - I just assumed unicode would be the default.

pesto serving httpd = simple_server.make_server(127.0.0.1, 8080, app) httpd.serve_forever()Monday, 22 August 2011WSGI: app is a WSGI app; EXTRAS: utilities for testing, sessions, caching, wsgi

9. werkzeugMonday, 22 August 2011DOCUMENTATION: very good, downloadable: The docs are a bit interestingly laid-out, with the sample program being overly complex tostart with, so I had to delve into the actual API docs to ﬁgure things out. Having said that, the example program does talk about structure,ORM layers, templating, URLs and other handy things.

werkzeug index and /PageName def index(request): raise RequestRedirect("/FrontPage") def page(request, name): if not storage.wikiname_re.match(name): raise NotFound(/%s % name) return wiki.render_page(name)Monday, 22 August 2011MAGIC: no magic

werkzeug /PageName/edit def edit_form(request, name): return wiki.render_edit_form(name) def edit(request, name): if request.form.get(submit): wiki.store_page(name, request.form[content]) raise RequestRedirect("/%s" % name)Monday, 22 August 2011

werkzeug URL mapping url_map = Map([ Rule(/, endpoint=index, methods=[GET]), Rule(/<name>/edit, endpoint=edit_form, methods=[GET]), Rule(/<name>/edit, endpoint=edit, methods=[POST]), Rule(/<name>, endpoint=page, methods=[GET]), ])Monday, 22 August 2011RESTful: Map with Rules having URL and request method type mapping to endpoint callable

werkzeug application and serving def application(environ, start_response): request = Request(environ) urls = url_map.bind_to_environ(environ) try: m, args = urls.match() r = m(request, **args) start_response(200 OK, [(Content-Type, text/html)]) return r except HTTPException, e: return e(environ, start_response) if __name__ == "__main__": from werkzeug.serving import run_simple run_simple(localhost, 8080, application)Monday, 22 August 2011EASE OF USE: simple except writing my own WSGI app; EXTRAS: contributed code for sessions, ATOM, secure cookies and caching;WSGI: had to write my own, but it was short

10. a#en.ioMonday, 22 August 2011

Monday, 22 August 2011Quite a different approach to things. Even though this is going against my "no templates" rule there is no way to use this framework*without* using its templating...

aspen.io index.html from aspen import Response ^L raise Response(301, headers={Location: /FrontPage}) ^LMonday, 22 August 2011EASE OF USE: wildly different and some things are inexplicably hard; EXTRAS: static ﬁle serving; MAGIC: the page break stuff(initialisation, action, template) hurts understandability. Oh, aspen, "raise Response(301, headers={Location: path+/})" really??!?

aspen.io directory structure .aspen index.html %name/index.html %name/editMonday, 22 August 2011Aspen sees the %name directory and assigns the ﬁrst part of the URL to the path variable “name”. Extra modules (storage, html, ...) haveto be placed in the hidden ".aspen" folder.

aspen.io %name/index.html from aspen import Response import storage wiki = storage.Storage(contents) ^L name = request.path[name] if not storage.wikiname_re.match(name): raise Response(404, /%s % name) page = wiki.render_page(name) ^L {{ page }}Monday, 22 August 2011I had to go off to the Tornado docs to ﬁgure how to HTML escaping was handled (though I probably couldve just tried and discoveredthat its not escaped by default). Not escaped HTML by default? RESTful: URLs map to ﬁlesystem paths

aspen.io %name/edit from aspen import Response import storage wiki = storage.Storage(contents) ^L name = request.path[name] if request.method == POST: if submit in request.body: wiki.store_page(name, request.body.one(content)) raise Response(301, headers={Location: / + name}) page = wiki.render_edit_form(name) response.headers.set(Content-Type, text/html) ^L {{ page }}Monday, 22 August 2011The documentation is *seriously* thin. I found myself having to read the source to: 1. ﬁgure out what the request.body thing was and howto use it, and 2. ﬁgure out how to get a redirect back to the client. Oh, text/html isn’t the DEFAULT? RESTful: manually test for requestmethod type in handler

aspen.io serving HTTP from aspen import server server.main()Monday, 22 August 2011Put this in a ﬁle in the aspen site’s directory. Or use the aspen command-line program. WSGI: appears to be no way to get a WSGI app.I’ve given aspen a rough time here because it’s not really suitable for my purposes, but I can see how it’d actually be really nice to developa simple website with.

So, how do they rank? • Let’s score them • +1 or -1 on each of: Documentation, Ease of Use, Avoiding Magic, RESTful, WSGI, Python 3, PyPy and SLOC cgi+wsgiref:0, aspen.io:0, bobo:0, bottle:0, cherrypy:0, ﬂask:0, itty:0, pesto:0, web.py:0, werkzeug:0Monday, 22 August 2011

Documentation • good, downloadable: cgi+wsgiref, flask, werkzeug, bottle • good: pesto • could be better: web.py, itty, cherrypy • bad: bobo, aspen.io cgi+wsgiref:1, aspen.io:-1, bobo:-1, bottle:1, cherrypy:0, flask:1, itty:0, pesto:1, web.py:0, werkzeug:1Monday, 22 August 2011No “hello world” ... ? Hard to find Redirect/NotFound, RESTful routing, form access, wsgi application?

Ease of Use • SIMPLE: pesto, itty, flask, web.py, bottle • Could get complicated: werkzeug, cherrypy • Complicated: aspen.io, bobo • Just Plain Difficult: cgi+wsgiref cgi+wsgiref:0, aspen.io:-2, bobo:-2, bottle:2, cherrypy:0, flask:2, itty:1, pesto:2, web.py:1, werkzeug:1Monday, 22 August 2011

Avoiding Magic • none: cgi+wsgiref, werkzeug, pesto • WSGI not apparent: itty • module-level: bottle, ﬂask, web.py, cherrypy • just plain odd: aspen.io, bobo cgi+wsgiref:1, aspen.io:-2, bobo:-3, bottle:1, cherrypy:-1, ﬂask:1, itty:1, pesto:3, web.py:0, werkzeug:2Monday, 22 August 2011

RESTful • bottle, ﬂask, itty, pesto, web.py, werkzeug • not obvious: bobo, cherrypy • manual test method: aspen.io • NO: cgi+wsgiref cgi+wsgiref:0, aspen.io:-3, bobo:-3, bottle:2, cherrypy:-1, ﬂask:2, itty:2, pesto:4, web.py:1, werkzeug:3Monday, 22 August 2011This actually dictated the structure of my wiki code more than anything else.

RESTful • Ignoring aspen.io there was 2 approaches: • decorate callable • listing maps directly to callableMonday, 22 August 2011

WSGI • bottle, ﬂask, pesto, cgi+wsgiref • not obvious: itty, web.py, cherrypy • manual: werkzeug • unknown: bobo • NO: aspen.io cgi+wsgiref:1, aspen.io:-4, bobo:-4, bottle:3, cherrypy: -1, ﬂask:3, itty:2, pesto:5, web.py:1, werkzeug:2Monday, 22 August 2011

Python 3 • yes: cgi+wsgiref, bottle, cherrypy • no: bobo, itty, web.py, pesto, werkzeug, ﬂask, aspen.io cgi+wsgiref:2, aspen.io:-5, bobo:-5, bottle:4, cherrypy:0, ﬂask:2, itty:1, pesto:4, web.py:0, werkzeug:1Monday, 22 August 2011

PyPy cgi+wsgiref:3, aspen.io:-4, bobo:-4, bottle:5, cherrypy:1, ﬂask:3, itty:2, pesto:5, web.py:1, werkzeug:2Monday, 22 August 2011PyPy 1.5.0-alpha0 with GCC 4.0.1 on OS X

PyPy THEY cgi+wsgiref:3, aspen.io:-4, bobo:-4, bottle:5, cherrypy:1, ﬂask:3, itty:2, pesto:5, web.py:1, werkzeug:2Monday, 22 August 2011PyPy 1.5.0-alpha0 with GCC 4.0.1 on OS X

PyPy THEY ALL cgi+wsgiref:3, aspen.io:-4, bobo:-4, bottle:5, cherrypy:1, ﬂask:3, itty:2, pesto:5, web.py:1, werkzeug:2Monday, 22 August 2011PyPy 1.5.0-alpha0 with GCC 4.0.1 on OS X

PyPy THEY ALL RUN cgi+wsgiref:3, aspen.io:-4, bobo:-4, bottle:5, cherrypy:1, ﬂask:3, itty:2, pesto:5, web.py:1, werkzeug:2Monday, 22 August 2011PyPy 1.5.0-alpha0 with GCC 4.0.1 on OS X

wiki.py line/byte count 38/905 bottle 38/982 itty 41/1061 flask 43/1148 bobo 45/1071 web.py 45/1301 pesto 51/1267 cherrypy 55/1730 werkzeug 77/2126 aspen.io 78/2142 cgi+wsgiref cgi+wsgiref:2, aspen.io:-5, bobo:-2, bottle:6, cherrypy:1, ﬂask:4, itty:3, pesto:6, web.py:1, werkzeug:2Monday, 22 August 2011

framework line count 593 itty 2441 cgi+wsgiref 2697 bottle 5600 aspen.io 6649 pesto 8044 bobo 10198 web.py 16563 werkzeug 27768 cherrypy 32245 flask cgi+wsgiref:3, aspen.io:-5, bobo:-2, bottle:7, cherrypy:0, ﬂask:3, itty:4, pesto:6, web.py:1, werkzeug:2Monday, 22 August 2011

The Ofﬁcial* Scores Rank Framework Score 1 bottle 7 2 pesto 6 3 itty 4 4 ﬂask, cgi+wsgiref 3 5 werkzeug 2 6 web.py 1 7 cherrypy 0 8 bobo -2 9 aspen.io -5Monday, 22 August 2011The scores, as determined solely by my own criteria and weighting.

OMGz0R a winner? Bo!le!Monday, 22 August 2011Simple to use, great docs, RESTful and WSGI, Python 3. A single ﬁle and compact application code. Awesome!

Extras Framework Sessions Caching Other cgi+wsgiref ✗ ✗ aspen.io ✗ ✗ static file serving bobo ✗ ✗ bottle ✗ ✗ templating, adapters, utilities cherrypy ✓ ✓ static file serving, plugins flask ✓ ✓ debugger, shell, werkzeug itty ✗ ✗ pesto ✓ ✓ utilities for testing web.py ✓ ✗ openid, templating, form & db werkzeug ✓ ✓ ATOM, secure cookiesMonday, 22 August 2011