Vincent Delporte wrote: > On 5 Dec 2006 17:05:06 -0800, "fumanchu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >In a nutshell, mod_python gives you > >access from Python to the Apache API, whereas CherryPy and friends give > >you their own API. > > I didn't know Apache had an API of its own, or that it was even needed > when writing a web application in Python. What does it provide in > addition to Python/mod_python?
Although Apache does have a quite considerable underlying API of its own, mod_python doesn't actually provide direct access to much of it from Python code. What mod_python does provide is still adequate for getting basic stuff done, but Apache could perhaps be better harnessed if all the Apache API were exposed and available. Where the power of Apache comes into play is the ability to compose together the functionality of different Apache modules to build up an application. That is, you aren't just doing everything in Python code. That said though, this doesn't mean you have to go off and write code in another language such as C. This is because the Apache modules are glued together through the Apache configuration files with some features also being able to be enabled from Python code running under mod_python. In some respects you need to see the whole of Apache as being a platform for building a web application. Unfortunately, most Python web application developers don't see that and simply use Apache as a convenient hopping off point for the main content handling phase of a request. Even where people do write stuff which makes use of mod_python as more than just a hopping off point, more often than not they still work within just mod_python and don't bring in other parts of Apache to any degree. For example, consider an extreme case such as WSGI. Through a goal of WSGI being portability it effectively ignores practically everything that Apache has to offer. Thus although Apache offers support for authentication and authorisation, a WSGI user would have to implement this functionality themselves or use a third party WSGI component that does it for them. Another example is Apache's support for enabling compression of content returned to a client. The WSGI approach is again to duplicate that functionality. Similarly with other Apache features such as URL rewriting, proxying, caching etc etc. Although WSGI is an extreme case because of the level it pitches at, other systems such as CherryPy and Django aren't much different as they effectively duplicate a lot of stuff that could be achieved using more basic functionality of Apache as well. Once one starts to make use of the underlying Apache functionality, you are binding yourself to Apache though and your stuff isn't portable to other web servers. Also, your job in part becomes more about integrating stuff to come up with a solution, rather than just writing pure Python code, something that many Python coders possibly wouldn't find appealing. :-) Graham -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
