I really have nothing to add but some history. I was a Django programmer (although never a Django contributor) and I have developed web sites for the United Nations in Django. I have taught Django here at DePaul University. I started web2py as a teaching because I found the learning curve with Django was too steep. Moreover when web2py was created Django was not the same as today. It did not have the template escaping on by default (web2py did), it had a bug in CSRF protection (web2py's one always worked), did not have migration (still does not but now there is third party solution), did not support multiple database connections (there was as Django fork but it took long time to be merged), did not support multiple projects (web2py always did), did not support left joins and aggregates (web2py always did). Django always supported less database engine than web2py (and some not very well, for example web2py generates better SQL code for pagination in Oracle). Django always had and still has a more polised and customizable admin (equivalent to web2py's appadmin) and a better interface for many-to-many relations.
They are philosophically differences: Django preferes "explicit is better than implicit" so you have do define lots of boilerplate web2py says "do not repeat yourself" so you have lots of default behavior (magic?) but documented and backward compatible. Other communities have used various arguments to criticize some web2py's design decisions. All design decisions have pros and cons. Some of the criticism has legs and some has not. What is important is that those decisions were not motivated by ignorance but by carefully considering the alternatives. As a result of those design decision web2py is the only framework that allows hot install and uninstall of apps without restarting the web server (with any web server) and supports multiple projects under one web2py instance without library conflicts. I also want to stress that our community is very friendly. We have always shown great respect for other people's work and we have tried to learn from them. We have taken ideas from Django, TG, Flask, etc and we proudly acknowledged it. Massimo On Wednesday, 1 August 2012 11:55:32 UTC-5, Anthony wrote: > > If it's a Django-friendly crowd, it might also be helpful to be prepared > to handle the inevitable criticisms that will come. The big issues that > tend to arise are (a) global objects/lack of imports/lack of > explicitness/too much magic, (b) use of exec, and (c) pure Python in views. > The links below address these and other criticisms. > > - > > http://www.quora.com/Is-web2py-a-good-Python-web-framework/answer/Anthony-Bastardi<http://www.quora.com/Is-web2py-a-good-Python-web-framework/answer/Anthony-Bastardi?__snids__=28309519#ans341179> > (scroll > a bit for response to criticism by Jacob Kaplan-Moss, creator of Django). > - https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/web2py/uIYf-dTjd88/P8yxUQwTZk4J > - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3767009 > - http://www.web2py.com/AlterEgo/default/show/271 > - > http://greg.thehellings.com/2011/01/python-web2py-or-django/#comment-546 > - > > http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-advantages-of-web2py-over-Django/answer/Daniel-Greenfeld/comment/478595 > (addressing > criticism of pure Python in views) > > And a little support from Zed Shaw regarding "magic": > https://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/80415443558477825, > https://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/80418794526351360 > > Anthony > > On Wednesday, August 1, 2012 11:46:48 AM UTC-4, Alec Taylor wrote: >> >> Tonight I'm going to present my little social-network to a user-group. >> >> I'm going to show them my code, some slides, the website, the mobile apps >> and tell them when Django isn't as good as web2py. >> >> Are there any particular features of web2py you would recommend I >> highlight? - Also, are there any major drawbacks in Django that web2py has >> that is easily advertisable? >> >> (I have a slide or two on this, but I'm sure as longtime users/developers >> of web2py you'd have more to pitch-in) >> >> Thanks for all information, >> >> Alec Taylor >> > --
