Python, Php Web programming

-- collection of comments from others
http://blog.ianbicking.org/why-web-programming-matters-most.html

"Trying to explain to people how to do Web programming in Python, or even trying to convince them to let me do Web programming in Python (instead of say PHP) has been an embarrassment. (This despite my opinion that PHP is an embarrassment to the term "programming language".)

I have long believed that Web scripting is the domain with the biggest bang-for-buck you can get out of a high-level language, mainly because the Web is the universal user interface. Once a program is placed on the Web, its functionality becomes instantly accessible to millions of people. Tiny, simple programs can become useful groupware tools.

Not all is lost, though. PHP succeeded at displacing Perl as a widespread Web programming language, so maybe it can happen again. Python can still do many things that other languages can't -- for example, cgitb exploits Python's unique strengths to provide a huge win for Web developers. "

" The vitrol that Python programmer's have for PHP has always baffeled me. Frankly, part of the reason I've avoided learning Python is because every Python programmer I've ever met has been a prick about my current choice in programming language. PHP works, I enjoy programming in it, I like the way it feels and reads, and the user community is incredibly supportive. More importantly, I've built some seriously effective web applications using it. If you want me to bother learning Python, loose the 'tude, dude.

Seriously, every language has its problems and it's quirks. PHP is far from perfect (e.g. no namespaces), but many of Python's language design features, such as the meaningful whitespace concept, I find unpleasant to work with. (A little too much like FORTRAN for my taste.) That doesn't mean that I don't think its a good language, or that Python programmers are bad people. (Just pooly socialized.) Obviously people have done a lot of great work in Python, and its a very useful tool. But its also a language that has a very different syntax from PHP, PERL, JavaScript, Java - languages that web people are familiar and comfortable with. If you want to get us to part with our semicolons, curly braces, and crazy bohemian whitespace, you're going to have to be nicer to us, and more polite about the tools we love. "

"I'm a PHP/Java/Ruby/Python programmer. I tried once to talk (but it's amazing how some people does not know how to talk) with a influent Python local dude about this. I told him that mod_python will spread more easily if it could show all it's power running on Apache 1.x, since there's is a LOT of websites still running Apache 1.x.

That was worst than insult his mother. He became mad, angry, asked me if we need to use old tools, that is a stupid idea blah blah blah.

He did not see the point there. I was thinking in a way that could help to, for example, THOUSANDS of PHP coders try mod_python (easy), without upgrade their webservers (harder) while PHP still marked Apache 2.x as experimental. But he was not able to talk about that. I told his so beloved tool could not work perfectly (and I was able to help if there was a way, on that moment) on a older enviroment, and he became mad, offended. Stupid. Idiot.

While this kind of behaviour still exists on the Python community (and believe me, there is a lot of situations like this), the tool will not even go closer where PHP is. While PHP is not a half of the language Python is (and I think Python is very better than PHP), some Python dudes are really hard to deal."

" You've clearly articulated a deep frustration that I have felt for several years now. I would love to do web programming in Python but I know that pragmatically PHP is a better choice despite its inadequacies as a language. Finding affordable Python hosting is not easy ; choosing a framework is not easy. Even when frameworks are well documented - like modpython - I would like more than just the bare documentation i.e. books.

For commodity hosting to emerge and books to be written the community has to agree on one framework, develop it further and make it easy for new programmers to get started. I worry that by failing to recognise the importance of the web and adding further complexities to the language Python will actually begin to lose users.