Pythoneering

Guido’s recent pronouncement recommending Django as ‘the’ Python Web Framework seems to have got some folk hot under the collar, and prompted a few criticisms of Django. I wonder whether Django’s image might suffer a little at the hands of people envious of the endorsement it appears to have received. I hope not.

Hopefully, people will realise that the comments of one individual, even one so illustrious as the BDFL, aren’t a serious threat to a project with the momentum that TurboGears has. But if Guido’s comments have the effect of dissuading Joe Programmer from writing Yet Another Python Web Framework, and encourage him to help make one of the existing successful frameworks even better, then they will have been well made.

This summer, I’ve been able to cross off Eclipse 3.2 and Django 0.95 from my “hotly anticipated releases” list. Actually, the latter wasn’t a big deal, given that I’ve been keeping my installation up to date using subversion - but I think formal releases have an important role to play in signalling to the community at large that a project is healthy.

The Eclipse Callisto release was a big deal, given that it included not just the basic SDK but also a host of other stuff like the Web Tools Platform and Data Tools Platform. I’ve been spending some time playing with a set-up that includes these features, plus the Apache Derby plug-in and Subversive subversion plug-in. I’m hoping that this particular set-up will prove to be a great environment for our students, particularly when it comes to project work in their final year.

Two things left on my “hotly anticipated” list are Python 2.5 (currently at rc1 status) and IronPython 1.0 (currently at rc2). I haven’t downloaded any of the earlier 2.5 releases, so I’m looking forward to playing with absolute imports, the ‘with’ statement and the new hashlib module from the standard library. IronPython I have toyed with before, albeit a very early version with many rough edges; it will be interesting to see how polished the final product has become.