[mod_python] How do you use mod_python?

Daniel Nogradi wrote ..
> Thanks all for the numerous replies!
> 
> The way I use modpython is through the publisher handler, but just around
> these days I thought about writing another handler to have more control
> over
> mapping url-s to code. But I don't think a single handler will solve every
> problem of every project and the answers I got seem to confirm this.
> 
> > For myself, looking at how people often outright refuse to use third
> > party packages is really frustrating.
> 
> Well, I think there are very good reasons for sticking to 'core' packages
> and staying away from third party stuff and that's reliablility. Take
> mod_python for example, since it's associated to ASF one can be more or
> less
> sure that it will be maintained, bugfixed, etc. But even though your Vampire
> package is probably great and flexible, you just said yourself that you
> will
> drop it soon and come up with a different design. What if in 2 years you
> decide to drop this one again and come up with an even better one with
> no
> backward compatibility? I think uncertainities of these type are the factors
> that keep users away from not very mature projects, even though they are
> excellent piece of software. Stable and reliable maintainance on a long
> run
> is equally important.

Reasonable comments. Although is some cases the justification that
people give for not using third party software is a bit silly. The worst
I have seen are Debian fanatics who wil refuse to use a package if it is
not available as a Debian package. I have even seen some cases where
they wouldn't use a newer verison of mod_python because it hadn't been
packaged yet, even though it fixed the problem they were having.

For Vampire at least, it will not dissappear and I will still make it
available and support it as need be even if I don't further develop it.
If I do make it unavailable, it would only be after many many years and
I was confident no one was using it or interested in it any more. That
is the way I work, although I accept that other developers may not have
the same attitude.

If you want some evidence that I don't give up on packages completely,
check out a package called OSE (http://ose.sourceforge.net) some time. I
started this package in 1990 and it was first made freely available in
1993. Although I am not actively extending it, given that it is more or
less feature complete for what its purpose was, I still make the
occasional release to address issues or make minor additions. If I can
just get my documentation sorted out, I will even take the beta tag off
the latest version, but this mod_python stuff has distracted me. :-)

Overall I think the biggest problem with many third party packages is
that people who develop them come mainly from the perspective of an
application developer. They work out what is required for the
application at hand but without too much thought of structuring the
underlying layers as a good reusable framework in itself. I truly
believe that to write good reusable code you need to have a completely
different mindset and not many are really good at that. If I am going to
use a third party package, I am thus more concerned about how it is
implemented and structured. If the code inside is a piece of crap and
the developer does stop looking after it, then I would obviously have
more issues than if the code was well structured. At least if the code
is well structured one is going to have more confidence that you could
maintain it yourself if need be. Most users though aren't generally
prepared to step up and do that and just expect everything to be
provided and done for them by others.


Graham