I think I remember Guido making the comment that Twisted
and/or Nevow
scared him. I also think that (ignoring the causal effects
of his
statement) many people feel the same way, and if those
people saw this
blog post, they'd say I was deluded.
I've been using
Nevow (on and off) since fzZzy first presented it at
PyCon2004. I've been blogging about it since
a
year after that.
My first "web framework" was
shell-script-generated HTML in the mid-90s.
Then I found PHP. Zope. Perl (Interchange and Mason). Plone.
Then a
whole string of custom solutions.
I tried Django when it
first came out, and hated it. I tried it again
recently, and was most pleased with the progress they've
made. I'm
using it on a project with some non-programmer folk who
wanted to convert
their application from PHP to Python (I couldn't sell them
on twisted).
After digging around in the Django code base, I can safely
say I will
probably enjoy myself while working on the project.
I've
also been a fan of the z3 CA for a couple years, and
disagree with much of
Ian Bicking's
recent
assessment of it (and agree very strongly with Martijn's
comments).
I continue to do work with z3 and enjoy almost all of it
(being able to
pick and choose helps greatly).
But when it comes down to
it, when I need to roll something out fast,
and I can choose the framework without concern for such
things as
technical support, community popularity, buzz, or political
considerations, I choose Nevow. Case in point, the project I
mentioned in
this
post. 30 minutes to casually convert a project
from z3 to Nevow.
Though important, development speed is
not the only consideration to
make. Everyone talks about how fast you can roll a project
out in
web framework X, etc. But there's something that has a much
higher
priority
for me: how insane will it let me be? Can I do
anything I
want? Once it's built, can I plug "stuff" in and out? Can I make
unexpected changes easily and quickly, without compromising the
integrity of the architecture?
And even more: can I build
my own system(s) with it?
And that's where Nevow
cinches it for me. I am the most comfortable with
it's design, templating, internals, and programmer freedom. I
feel I have
a little more freedom and flexibility with it than I do with
z3. Nevow
provides me with the tools and comfort level to build my own
systems
easily, quickly, and extensibly.
As an example, take
this
work in progress.
I've built a couple game-world
oriented sites in the past. The first one
used PHP and the second two used Plone. In both cases, it
was very
difficult to easily manage what I wanted to manage. I
learned a lot of
lessons about how information management works for
me. When I
started working on Myðgarður, I put these lessons into
effect. Nevow let
me do that.
I have a highly customized brain that needs
things done in a certain way
in order to be maximally productive. I think lots of brains
are like
that ;-) I want a framework that reflects my brain's
needs,
not only to
deliver a result quickly, but to deliver it in a way the
fits me
best... and can adapt to the future best.
As a side note,
Nevow is going
through an
overhaul
(more)
right now that will not only improve its general efficiency,
but will
actually fit my brain even better. When the context-less
Nevow is released, I plan on producing at least
one screencast on how to go form 0 to 60 with it in less
than 20 minutes.
So stay tuned...
