[web2py] New to web app development -- is web2py a good choice

[Anthony]

I am brand new to web application development, and I'm looking for a
good web framework to learn in order to build a new web application
(sort of a personal task/project management system). I want it to look
(and act) like a serious, polished, state-of-the-art Web 2.0 site/app
(i.e., not amateurish or out-dated). I've got some experience with
website building, HTML, CSS, and a little javascript. I don't have any
experience with server-side coding, but I do have general programming
experience (i.e., not web/internet related) as well as some experience
with relational databases and SQL.

I'm looking for a framework that will be relatively easy to learn,
though I'm just as concerned with how easy it is to go through the
learning process (i.e., find well-organized documentation, tutorials,
examples, community support, etc.) as with the conceptual simplicity/
easiness of the framework itself (i.e., I don't mind learning
something hard if I've got good learning resources).

Also, rather than creating everything from scratch, I'm hoping to rely
as much as possible on existing libraries, plug-ins, applications,
examples, etc. So, a framework that's compatible with as large a
universe as possible of existing solutions would be ideal. I'm also
planning to link to various web service API's (e.g., Google Calendar).

From what I've read, web2py sounds like a great framework --
comprehensive, well-integrated, easy to set up, learn, and deploy,
etc. However, although it sounds good on paper, I haven't yet found a
single site built with web2py that looks all that impressive (at least
superficially). It's easy to find quite a number of sophisticated and
impressive looking sites/apps built with Ruby on Rails and Django, but
I haven't seen anything remotely comparable based on web2py. I'm
wondering why the disparity. Is it simply that web2py is a relative
newcomer and has a small user base, or does web2py have some inherent
limitations that make it less than ideal for building polished, larger
scale web apps? In other words, could a site like Basecamp
(www.basecamphq.com) be built just as easily with web2py as with ROR,
or is web2py not really suited for that level of development?

I'm also wondering about the long term viability of web2py. I don't
want to adopt a framework that ends up fizzling out in a couple years.
Is web2py on an upward trajectory, or is its future uncertain? For
example, I notice that the web2py-developers group has only about one
tenth as many members as even the Pylons and TurboGears developer
groups (and one one hundreth as many as ROR and Django). Is web2py too
dependent on just one or two key developers who may lose interest over
time?

Any insights and advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[mdipierro]

Other users should answer this question but I will add some comments

On May 6, 12:37 am, Anthony <av201...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am brand new to web application development, and I'm looking for a
> good web framework to learn in order to build a new web application
> (sort of a personal task/project management system). I want it to look
> (and act) like a serious, polished, state-of-the-art Web 2.0 site/app
> (i.e., not amateurish or out-dated). I've got some experience with
> website building, HTML, CSS, and a little javascript. I don't have any
> experience with server-side coding, but I do have general programming
> experience (i.e., not web/internet related) as well as some experience
> with relational databases and SQL.
>
> I'm looking for a framework that will be relatively easy to learn,
> though I'm just as concerned with how easy it is to go through the
> learning process (i.e., find well-organized documentation, tutorials,
> examples, community support, etc.) as with the conceptual simplicity/
> easiness of the framework itself (i.e., I don't mind learning
> something hard if I've got good learning resources).

web2py was designed to be very easy to learn. I do think it is easier
then the other ones you mention.
the book is at web2py.com/book

> Also, rather than creating everything from scratch, I'm hoping to rely
> as much as possible on existing libraries, plug-ins, applications,
> examples, etc. So, a framework that's compatible with as large a
> universe as possible of existing solutions would be ideal. I'm also
> planning to link to various web service API's (e.g., Google Calendar).

look into web2py.com/plugins

> From what I've read, web2py sounds like a great framework --
> comprehensive, well-integrated, easy to set up, learn, and deploy,
> etc. However, although it sounds good on paper, I haven't yet found a
> single site built with web2py that looks all that impressive (at least
> superficially). It's easy to find quite a number of sophisticated and
> impressive looking sites/apps built with Ruby on Rails and Django, but
> I haven't seen anything remotely comparable based on web2py. I'm
> wondering why the disparity. Is it simply that web2py is a relative
> newcomer and has a small user base, or does web2py have some inherent
> limitations that make it less than ideal for building polished, larger
> scale web apps? In other words, could a site like Basecamp
> (www.basecamphq.com) be built just as easily with web2py as with ROR,
> or is web2py not really suited for that level of development?

web2py was released at least 4 years after ROR and Django, as a result
ROR and Django are at least 10 times more popular than web2py. You
have to decide whether you prefer a framework that gives you a
competitive advantage or one for which it will be easier to hire
developers.
For various reasons most of the early adopters use it for intranet
applications so they are not public.

> I'm also wondering about the long term viability of web2py. I don't
> want to adopt a framework that ends up fizzling out in a couple years.
> Is web2py on an upward trajectory, or is its future uncertain? For
> example, I notice that the web2py-developers group has only about one
> tenth as many members as even the Pylons and TurboGears developer
> groups (and one one hundreth as many as ROR and Django). Is web2py too
> dependent on just one or two key developers who may lose interest over
> time?

We have ~50 developers http://web2py.com/examples/default/who
I am just the gatekeeper to make sure web2py does not break backward
compatibility (something other frameworks do not care much about). You
can see the history of commits on google code. You can see that for 2
years we had more releases than Django and Rails.

> Any insights and advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Try ask this question on the mailing lists of web2py, Django, and
Rails: what does framework X do for me that Y and Z do not? See who
answers first and which answer you like the most.

[Chris S]

I've heard it said that the documentation for web2py isn't as good as
some other options. I'm not sure if that's true with the new
revisions to the available online book, but I am sure anyone saying
that does not utilize this group. I've never seen support for
anything as good as this google group. I'm no programmer, I'm no web
developer, I'm learning pything and web2py for fun because this is
such a great framework. It doesn't matter what you have a question
about: deployment, python code, web2py functions, best database
practices, etc. Anything you can think of you'll find answers and
guidance for here on this group.

I am not exaggerating when I tell you I receive explanations to my
questions within an hour of posting. Timing varies of course, but
this community (especially Massimo) is the most helpful resource
anyone could ask for. You will not find a better resource than this
group. Books and guides can only cover a finite amount of questions,
the active developers here can provide guidance to your specific
needs.

I can't answer any of the advanced technical comparisons, but that's
the view from someone who has been going through the learning curve.

> We have ~50 developershttp://web2py.com/examples/default/who

[Patrick]

On May 6, 12:37 am, Anthony <av201...@yahoo.com> wrote:

As a budding programmer I would say web2py is a great start for web
development, especially in todays competitive market and ever changing
technology scene. I looked at the most popular python frameworks and
found that they were not simple enough for a novice, despite the
claims of being easy to learn/use.
The ML, and IRC are always super helpful and I haven't once been
belittled/flamed for not knowing something that I "should" know.
Also web2py is very sensible compared to other frameworks and
introduces to new and exciting stuff that I had never heard of before,
such as ez-css (yeah I'm that new to web development). Not to mention
being able to run web2py anywhere without having to setup a full
development environment is a HUGE plus as well. (Other frameworks are
tedious from the get go...)
Read the book, look at the examples and join the IRC channel to get
your own perspective. I'm sure you'll find the experience worth it.
Happy Hacking.

[Mengu]

This was true until the book went online. Now, web2py have a great
documentation. Other than that, anything that a beginner might ask can
be found in the mailing list.

[Christopher Steel]

Hi Anthony,

I am new to Python and started dabbling in Web2py late last year.
Without a doubt the most awesome thing about working with Web2py aside
from Web2py itself is the totally rocking Web2py community.

Massimo has and continues to set a very high bar in terms of his
stellar commitment to supporting the Web2py community. This example,
combined with the ability of community members as a whole to follow
his lead, identify and honestly report on and own the occasional bugs
(or faux bugs caused by late nights of programming; ), make this
community something special.

Oh right, and sometime so much awesome new code and examples get
contributed to the project that it seems like it has been raining high
quality code for weeks on end.

I created a laundry list of the qualities I was looking for in a web
product / application framework and ended up here.

As far as impressive sites goes, gee, do we have a list of impressive
sites around anywhere anyone?



Christopher Steel

[mdipierro]

I have not done a good job at keep track. These are two outdated
lists:

http://www.appliedstacks.com/PoweredBy/web2py
http://web2py.com/poweredby

[cjrh]

On May 6, 7:37 am, Anthony <av201...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am brand new to web application development, and I'm looking for a
> good web framework to learn in order to build a new web application
> (sort of a personal task/project management system).
>

> Any insights and advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

I know this question well: you're considering getting into web2py, but
your time is precious and you don't want to spend a lot of time on
something that you might later end up dumping in favour of a
different, better tool. Unfortunately, there is almost nothing
anyone can merely say that will convince you, because you have clearly
done your homework.

I would say that you probably cannot avoid at least toying with
multiple tools in order to get a feel for their differences. This
will be far more valuable than regurgitated lists of features. For
example, when I was looking for a web-framework, I knew I right away I
wanted a Python one, because I had significant experience with the
language, so that immediately limited my choices; a good thing, in
this instance. Thereafter it came down to Turbogears vs. Django vs.
web2py (Zope was right out). I came up with a small project at work
that was suitable for a web-based app (it was an in-house build-server
for our Delphi-based product line), and made the app in Django, and
then completely remade it again to exactly the same specs in
web2py.

This was my first web-app. It took about a week to get both done,
starting from scratch. It was not a big project at all. I bought
the Django book (1.1) and the web2py book (2nd Ed) for this. After
having made this comparison, I got a pretty good idea of the relative
merits between Django and web2py for the general, basic work of web
apps. In my opinion, the conveniences web2py makes available for the
developer more than make up for any concern about community size. I
enjoy web2py even more as time goes on, the more I learn. This is a
good sign, just like when I was first learning Python. Django is
just more work to use, for example, and for no benefit either. Though
if web2py were not available, I would use Django, and probably be
happy with it. Once I decided on web2py I never bothered with TG. I
remain curious, but only slightly so. I am accumulating a basic idea
of how web-frameworks work in general, so I imagine the differences
between different frameworks (even across language boundaries) become
smaller and smaller as one becomes more familiar with the domain.

I would strongly recommend you get the book, if you are considering
spending some time on web2py. It, similar to something like Vi, will
be incomprehensible until you read some documentation. You can't
figure it out on your own, don't even try. Just get a book and work
through the examples. Or use the book online, if you can work with
books on-screen (I can't).

[Miguel Lopes]

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 6:37 AM, Anthony <av20...@yahoo.com> wrote:

I am brand new to web application development, and I'm looking for a
good web framework to learn in order to build a new web application
(sort of a personal task/project management system). I want it to look
(and act) like a serious, polished, state-of-the-art Web 2.0 site/app
(i.e., not amateurish or out-dated). I've got some experience with
website building, HTML, CSS, and a little javascript. I don't have any
experience with server-side coding, but I do have general programming
experience (i.e., not web/internet related) as well as some experience
with relational databases and SQL.

Server side code in web2py is all Python. This makes it very easy to learn and use. The DAL (Database Abstraction Layer) is very easy to use (but you must read about it, www.web2py.com/book is more than enough to get up to speed. The templating code is also pure Python (with very few little twists). Note that you can use other ORMs or templating engines, if you which (loosing some benefits though).
 

I'm looking for a framework that will be relatively easy to learn,
though I'm just as concerned with how easy it is to go through the
learning process (i.e., find well-organized documentation, tutorials,
examples, community support, etc.) as with the conceptual simplicity/
easiness of the framework itself (i.e., I don't mind learning
something hard if I've got good learning resources).

Web2py makes as easy as py!
There have been some issues about spread documentation in the past. But since the book went online (the same book that is published) everyone got a premier resource for most questions. Other relevant sources are:

http://www.web2py.com/book
http://wiki.web2py.com/Home
http://www.web2py.com/examples/default/examples
http://www.web2py.com/AlterEgo/
http://www.web2pyslices.com/
http://web2py.com/appliances/
http://web2py.com/plugins/
http://www.web2py.com/examples/static/epydoc/

Don't forget this list :-)
If you google you also find other peoples sites and blogs that are sometimes useful.

 

Also, rather than creating everything from scratch, I'm hoping to rely
as much as possible on existing libraries, plug-ins, applications,
examples, etc. So, a framework that's compatible with as large a
universe as possible of existing solutions would be ideal. I'm also
planning to link to various web service API's (e.g., Google Calendar).

web2py comes with jQuery bundled in. But you can easily replace it for another ajax framework. But you can take advantage of other solutions. You can integrate Pyjamas, Flex, YUI, etc... Most of these have some example (most likely in one or more of the links supplied above).

From what I've read, web2py sounds like a great framework --
comprehensive, well-integrated, easy to set up, learn, and deploy,
etc.

A nice thing is that it is pretty easy and simple to make something with existing resources and then extend these as you upgrade or polish up your solution. For example, Validators will solve most of your database and Form validation demands, but it is very example to come up with your own validator for, per example, validating an autocomplete widget (which you can develop or use from an existing library).
  

However, although it sounds good on paper, I haven't yet found a
single site built with web2py that looks all that impressive (at least
superficially). It's easy to find quite a number of sophisticated and
impressive looking sites/apps built with Ruby on Rails and Django, but
I haven't seen anything remotely comparable based on web2py. I'm
wondering why the disparity. Is it simply that web2py is a relative
newcomer and has a small user base, or does web2py have some inherent
limitations that make it less than ideal for building polished, larger
scale web apps? In other words, could a site like Basecamp
(www.basecamphq.com) be built just as easily with web2py as with ROR,
or is web2py not really suited for that level of development?

Yes, definitively. I'm in the process of finishing something similar for an intranet.
Regarding scalability, evidence suggests that web2py is more scalable than most solutions.
 

I'm also wondering about the long term viability of web2py. I don't
want to adopt a framework that ends up fizzling out in a couple years.
Is web2py on an upward trajectory, or is its future uncertain? For
example, I notice that the web2py-developers group has only about one
tenth as many members as even the Pylons and TurboGears developer
groups (and one one hundreth as many as ROR and Django). Is web2py too
dependent on just one or two key developers who may lose interest over
time?

Massimo already answered this. But I've been using web2py from the beginning, have a site running on it with absolutely no problems. Upgrading to a new release is as simple as (well just import you old app in a new release) - you cannot over estimate the value of Backward compatibility. The web interface is great for quick fishes and upgrading your app (you can inclusively import it with a different name and have people tests without stopping the production instance).

[mdipierro]

> Massimo already answered this. But I've been using web2py from the
> beginning, have a site running on it with absolutely no problems. Upgrading
> to a new release is as simple as (well just import you old app in a new
> release) -

No. It is simpler. There is a button in admin on the right [upgrade
now]. you do not need to download or unzip anything any more.

[Alexei Vinidiktov]

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Anthony <av20...@yahoo.com> wrote:
[...]

> From what I've read, web2py sounds like a great framework --
> comprehensive, well-integrated, easy to set up, learn, and deploy,
> etc. However, although it sounds good on paper, I haven't yet found a
> single site built with web2py that looks all that impressive (at least
> superficially). It's easy to find quite a number of sophisticated and
> impressive looking sites/apps built with Ruby on Rails and Django, but
> I haven't seen anything remotely comparable based on web2py. I'm
> wondering why the disparity.

What you've seen on those sites is the façade. It's the work of
graphic designers and not a merit of the underlying frameworks. That's
what you see.

I'm sure the same effect can be achieved with any web2py based
website. You just need to hire a great graphic designer and usability
expert.

--
Alexei Vinidiktov

[Thadeus Burgess]

One thing I have noticed is django and RoR is for the most part, a
designer oriented community. IE: Lots of designers, few real
programmers/engineers, this is why you see design-oriented keywords
floating around in those frameworks. Most of us here in the web2py
community are programmers/engineers/physicists, etc... we don't have
the best design skills, even if we are brilliant =)

--
Thadeus

[Jason Brower]

Yup... the software I create with web2py is stricty internal anyway.
They honestly would fire me if it looked too good. I would be wasting
there money. :P
Best Regards,
Jason

[weheh]

Interesting observation, Thadeus. Who knows how accurate, but it
resonates with me. According to one of the Django developers, Django
was designed with the notion that designers and engineers don't mix,
so the templating language and syntax are different from the server-
side db interface and business logic, which is python, I believe. I'm
conjecturing because when I heard that in a lecture, I decided that
instant that I wouldn't be using Django.

Web2py, on the other hand, is consistent in its use of python
througout, so one person can, indeed, do it all. Web2py won't make up
for a lack of design sense, but it does help you avoid having to learn
2 different languages for doing 2 different things, which in my
opinion, would be 1 way too many. Bottom line, Anthony, go with
web2py. You won't regret it and you might even give yourself a hug and
a pat on the back for making such a smart decision.

[Miguel Lopes]

Yeah! shows how conservative I am :-)

[mdmcginn]

But, as has been pointed out, people might be confused or discouraged
by the look and feel of web2py.com, if all they want is easy, good-
looking websites/webapps. It's great that Massimo is making Drupal and
Wordpress templates to work with web2py. But we should strive to make
web2py.com, web2pyslices, etc. look beautiful, so we don't give the
impression that great design is incompatible with web2py.

On May 8, 11:30 am, Thadeus Burgess <thade...@thadeusb.com> wrote:
> One thing I have noticed is django and RoR is for the most part, a
> designer oriented community. IE: Lots of designers, few real
> programmers/engineers, this is why you see design-oriented keywords
> floating around in those frameworks. Most of us here in the web2py
> community are programmers/engineers/physicists, etc... we don't have
> the best design skills, even if we are brilliant =)
>
> --
> Thadeus
>
> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 9:07 AM, Alexei Vinidiktov
>
>
>

> <alexei.vinidik...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Anthony]

All, thanks so much for your thoughtful responses -- very helpful and
encouraging. I can see this is a very active, open, and supportive
community, and I believe I will give web2py a try. (I followed
Massimo's advice and posted a similar question on the ROR list, and
Massimo even popped up over there to add to the discussion -- nice
work.)

I appreciate the points made regarding why I'm not finding a lot of
impressive looking examples of web2py-powered sites (i.e., focus on
intranet development; lack of design-oriented web2py developers).
Digging into the list a bit, it appears this issue has come up before:

http://groups.google.com/group/web2py/browse_frm/thread/22d37d27b6fc969f
http://groups.google.com/group/web2py/browse_frm/thread/e70143ebf8be476c

I know I'm new here, and I don't want to be presumptuous, but perhaps
it would be useful to hear the perspective of someone who has recently
been "shopping" for a web framework and comparing the different
alternatives. For me at least (and I suspect I'm not alone), it's very
helpful to be able to identify some high quality examples and/or some
high profile organizations using the framework. These "used by"
examples (a) tell me that other successful organizations have found
value in the framework, (b) demonstrate real-world capabilities and
use cases, and (c) boost confidence in the long-term viability of the
framework (i.e., it's more likely to continue being developed/
supported if it's got lots of users and/or at least a few high profile
users).

Given web2py's unique situation, you might consider some of the
following:

* Identify a handful of your best public examples and highlight just
those. Among the existing crop, a few that stood out to me were
several of Julio Flores' sites (i.e., pyforum.org, techfuel.net, and
the screenshots of pyshowcase.org and pystack.com posted on
techfuel.net), web2pyslices.com (though the design could use a little
polishing), and qualitysystems.com.

* Just as important as what you include is what you don't. Don't list
50 sites just because they all happen to use web2py. The unimpressive
ones may actually detract from interest in web2py, and they make it a
lot harder to find the few good ones (not to mention that some of the
sites listed don't even exist anymore). If there are a few sites that
have some impressive capabilities under the hood but just happen not
to look so pretty, maybe call those out separately, but provide some
explanation (e.g., "Doesn't look pretty because not intended for wide
public consumption, but it does XYZ in only 100 lines of code...").

* For internal/intranet projects with notable companies, try to get
permission to mention the company name (possibly with logo) on the
web2py site.

* If you can't get permission to mention the company name, provide a
general description of the type of company and nature of the project
(e.g., "A Fortune 500 financial services organization uses web2py to
power its mission critical XYZ system...").

* In some cases, you might also be able to show redacted screenshots
(i.e., blur out confidential/proprietary details or replace with
generic data).

More generally, compared with some of the other frameworks (even
Pylons and TurboGears), I think the web2py site itself could use a
little more polish and organization. There appear to be a lot of great
resources, but they seem a bit scattered. For example, there's the
book, which includes its own wiki pages, plus a separate wiki style
FAQ (which is just a very long unorganized list), plus an entirely
separate wiki site, all with different UI's. In addition, there are
examples and applications on the main site (not particularly well
organized), a separate plugins site, and additional apps, plugins,
examples, and snippets on web2pyslices.com, again all with different
UI's. That's a lot of seemingly related documentation and resources
scattered across a lot of different places (that are not well
integrated or universally searchable). Also, I can't find a way to
navigate to the "Powered By" list without already knowing the URL
(actually, that's probably a good thing for the time being), and at
least two of the affiliated companies listed don't appear to exist
anymore. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Honestly, coming from the sites of some of the other frameworks,
web2py suffers a bit by comparison (I think unnecessarily so). You
seem to have all the ingredients -- they just need to be organized and
presented a bit more effectively (and attractively). Fair or not,
prospective users will make inferences about the substance and quality
of the framework based on the presentation (not to mention the fact
that the organization/presentation of the resources directly impacts
the ease with which prospective users can learn about web2py and new
users can become proficient with it).

Anyway, I'm sure you've thought about and discussed some of these
issues before. I just thought it might be helpful to hear from someone
looking at it with fresh eyes.

Again, thanks everyone.

On May 10, 12:00 pm, mdmcginn <michael.d.mcgin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> But, as has been pointed out, people might be confused or discouraged
> by the look and feel of web2py.com, if all they want is easy, good-
> looking websites/webapps. It's great that Massimo is making Drupal and
> Wordpress templates to work with web2py. But we should strive to make
> web2py.com, web2pyslices, etc. look beautiful, so we don't give the
> impression that great design is incompatible with web2py.
>
> On May 8, 11:30 am, Thadeus Burgess <thade...@thadeusb.com> wrote:
>
> > One thing I have noticed is django and RoR is for the most part, a
> > designer oriented community. IE: Lots of designers, few real
> > programmers/engineers, this is why you see design-oriented keywords
> > floating around in those frameworks. Most of us here in the web2py
> > community are programmers/engineers/physicists, etc... we don't have
> > the best design skills, even if we are brilliant =)
>
> > --
> > Thadeus
>
> > On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 9:07 AM, Alexei Vinidiktov
>

[mdipierro]

You make excellent points. I agree with all of them.

On May 10, 1:54 pm, Anthony <av201...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> All, thanks so much for your thoughtful responses -- very helpful and
> encouraging. I can see this is a very active, open, and supportive
> community, and I believe I will give web2py a try. (I followed
> Massimo's advice and posted a similar question on the ROR list, and
> Massimo even popped up over there to add to the discussion -- nice
> work.)
>
> I appreciate the points made regarding why I'm not finding a lot of
> impressive looking examples of web2py-powered sites (i.e., focus on
> intranet development; lack of design-oriented web2py developers).
> Digging into the list a bit, it appears this issue has come up before:
>

> http://groups.google.com/group/web2py/browse_frm/thread/22d37d27b6fc969fhttp://groups.google.com/group/web2py/browse_frm/thread/e70143ebf8be476c

[greenpoise]

You seem to be concerned with the aesthetics for the most. My take is
this, there is the development part and there is the design part of a
web application. You can make any site look the same with any of the
frameworks you mentioned including web2py. You have to be good at CSS/
HTML and some photo editing software and you are set. I also think
Web2py is new compared to the other frameworks you mention, however,
it does not lack any feature the others have, in any case the others
lack alot of features web2py has. I believe web2py developers
community will grow as time goes by and more sites will begin to
appear. As for the documentation, I think almost every open source
technology documentation is scattered around. If you ask me, as a non
natural coder and someone who did extensive research on frameworks
before settling with web2py, web2py is nearly transparent for the
developer making it so much easier than any other framework. All in
all, is what you feel the most comfortable working with.

On May 10, 2:54 pm, Anthony <av201...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> All, thanks so much for your thoughtful responses -- very helpful and
> encouraging. I can see this is a very active, open, and supportive
> community, and I believe I will give web2py a try. (I followed
> Massimo's advice and posted a similar question on the ROR list, and
> Massimo even popped up over there to add to the discussion -- nice
> work.)
>
> I appreciate the points made regarding why I'm not finding a lot of
> impressive looking examples of web2py-powered sites (i.e., focus on
> intranet development; lack of design-oriented web2py developers).
> Digging into the list a bit, it appears this issue has come up before:
>

> http://groups.google.com/group/web2py/browse_frm/thread/22d37d27b6fc969fhttp://groups.google.com/group/web2py/browse_frm/thread/e70143ebf8be476c

[Anthony]

On May 10, 7:44 pm, greenpoise <danel.sega...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You seem to be concerned with the aesthetics for the most.

Admittedly, aesthetics is part of the issue, but it's not just about
aesthetics. When looking at a web framework, I (and many others) am
wondering, can it be used to build a sophisticated, high-traffic,
commercial web application intended for broad public consumption? A
quick, easy, and very convincing way to answer that question is simply
to see if it already has been used to build such sites. The other
frameworks answer that question very easily (http://rubyonrails.org/
applications; http://www.djangoproject.com; http://www.djangosites.org;
http://wiki.pylonshq.com/display/pylonscommunity/Sites+Using+Pylons;
http://www.turbogears.com). If web2py cannot produce such examples,
it's reasonable to ask, why haven't any developers/organizations who
build serious commercial web applications adopted web2py? Is it
because web2py isn't well suited for that purpose (either technically,
or for some other reason, such as licensing, documentation, support,
long-term viability, etc.)? What other evidence is there that web2py
is a good tool for this purpose (answering this question requires a
lot more effort without any good examples or high profile endorsements
to point to)?

(Note: I'm only asking these questions rhetorically to illustrate the
importance of having a good "Used By" list. I think we've covered the
actual answers to these questions in the discussion already.)

> My take is
> this, there is the development part and there is the design part of a
> web application. You can make any site look the same with any of the
> frameworks you mentioned including web2py. You have to be good at CSS/
> HTML and some photo editing software and you are set.

Yes, absolutely. But any serious commercial web application will have
(reasonably) good design because that's a requirement for success in
the marketplace. So, again, the question is, if you can make good
looking sites with web2py, why isn't anybody using it for that purpose
(again, I'm only asking this rhetorically -- I think we've already
covered this as well)?

> I also think
> Web2py is new compared to the other frameworks you mention, however,
> it does not lack any feature the others have, in any case the others
> lack alot of features web2py has.

Yes, I'm getting that sense, and it's good to know.

> As for the documentation, I think almost every open source
> technology documentation is scattered around.

True, though some are better than others. web2py's documentation and
resources are by no means poor -- it's just that they could be made a
little more coherent and organized.

> If you ask me, as a non
> natural coder and someone who did extensive research on frameworks
> before settling with web2py, web2py is nearly transparent for the
> developer making it so much easier than any other framework.

Thanks, it's very helpful to get this kind of feedback from someone
who has done extensive research on available frameworks.

Note, I am absolutely not trying to knock web2py in any way. I
actually find it quite compelling, and I think this community is a
real selling point. However, it probably took more effort for me to
come to that conclusion than it should have, largely because of the
issues I have raised. For every person like me (and you) who persist
and decide to dig a little deeper to learn about web2py, there are
probably several who abandon their investigation early on due to some
of these perceptions. I suspect at least some of those people can be
won over with a little extra effort.

[Richard]

The book was a huge improvement but there is certainly more to be
done. Unfortunately this kind of work is not fun so happens slowly.

Would it be worth migrating useful content to the book (and slices)
and close the legacy apps (AlterEgo, wiki)?

Having a list of notable web2py driven sites is a good idea.
Perhaps someone with design skills could submit an improved look for
web2py.com and the default app.

Richard

On May 11, 4:54 am, Anthony <av201...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> All, thanks so much for your thoughtful responses -- very helpful and
> encouraging. I can see this is a very active, open, and supportive
> community, and I believe I will give web2py a try. (I followed
> Massimo's advice and posted a similar question on the ROR list, and
> Massimo even popped up over there to add to the discussion -- nice
> work.)
>
> I appreciate the points made regarding why I'm not finding a lot of
> impressive looking examples of web2py-powered sites (i.e., focus on
> intranet development; lack of design-oriented web2py developers).
> Digging into the list a bit, it appears this issue has come up before:
>

> http://groups.google.com/group/web2py/browse_frm/thread/22d37d27b6fc969fhttp://groups.google.com/group/web2py/browse_frm/thread/e70143ebf8be476c

[cjrh]

On May 12, 6:11 am, Richard <richar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The book was a huge improvement but there is certainly more to be
> done. Unfortunately this kind of work is not fun so happens slowly.

I am happy to volunteer help for documentation. I enjoy improving
documentation.

> Would it be worth migrating useful content to the book (and slices)
> and close the legacy apps (AlterEgo, wiki)?

Yes, I think so. Try to focus on the official documentation as much
as possible. My 2nd edition copy of the book here looks about 325
pages, which is already quite long. From a publisher point-of-view,
it may make more economic sense to split the official documentation
into two books, e.g. a "reference" manual and a "user" manual, the
former concerned with formal specifications of the classes and
structure of the framework, and the latter focused on how the
framework must be used to create applications? It should be easy to
do this via Lulu.

[Thadeus Burgess]

We need tutorials, a beginners, intermediate, and expert level on
web2py apps, each going into different details of web2py step by step
line by line.



--
Thadeus

[Anthony]

On May 6, 6:01 pm, mdipierro <mdipie...@cs.depaul.edu> wrote:
> I have not done a good job at keep track. These are two outdated
> lists:
>
> http://www.appliedstacks.com/PoweredBy/web2py
> http://web2py.com/poweredby
>

Note, the Powered By list on web2py.com includes a link to www.sahanapy.org
(which now redirects to eden.sahanafoundation.org). However, that's
just the trac site for the Sahana Eden project (i.e., it's not
actually powered by web2py). When you get around to creating a new
Powered By list, you should instead link to the live demo of the
Sahana Eden application, which _is_ powered by web2py:
http://demo.eden.sahanafoundation.org (it even has a web2py icon on
the bottom).

In fact, that Sahana demo is probably the single most impressive
publicly accessible example of what web2py can do (though www.radbox.me
is also very cool and aesthetically well designed). I had been at the
Sahana project site once before and (a) mistakenly thought _that_ was
what was powered by web2py (just taking a quick look at sites on the
Powered By list), (b) wasn't that impressed (due to (a)), and (c)
failed to get to the demo and become properly impressed with web2py.

It might also be worth pointing people to
http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestionsWeb2Py.

[Robert O'Connor]

Some of the cookbooks are handy.

What if somebody provided a way to do "wizard" style user interfaces.
(I requested information on a separate thread -- which is currently
awaiting moderation)

There is both a lack of official documentation and even resources of
those who've used it! I've done google searches and turned up nil in a
lot of cases! I'll try to contribute a bit when I figure out how to do
what i want. Blogs are the number one untapped resource for learning
new things.

--rob

On May 12, 11:11 am, Thadeus Burgess <thade...@thadeusb.com> wrote:
> We need tutorials, a beginners, intermediate, and expert level on
> web2py apps, each going into different details of web2py step by step
> line by line.
>
> --
> Thadeus
>

[Doug Warren]

One thing that would probably be helpful is just to get some of the links that are presented here into the official website.  Maybe I wasn't looking at the right spot, but while I had found web2pysplices, and the appliances section on the main website, until this thread I've never seen http://web2py.com/plugins/ (Is it listed from the main page at all?  I checked main page, Download, Documentation, Staff, Support at the top and a ^F for plugin found no hits.) 

[Seraaj Muneer]

Greetings from Accra Ghana!

Quite an old thread, but adding my 2 cents here for anyone who stumbles on this with a question similar to the OP.

Having been doing Java EE for almost 5 years now, I can say wholeheartedly web2py is the most time-saving, intuitive, common sense oriented framework I've ever used. The number of man hours I've spent on the massive plumbing (authentication, authorization, forms, menus, etc) that I get for free with web2py is just mind boggling. From RBAC to fully functional menus to a very powerful albeit deceptively simple data access framework, I can confidently posit that web2py is hands down, the best.

However, if you're coming from the Java world, my very strong advise is to first unlearn the Java ORM-esque way of doing things. Specifically, you would not want to subconsciously be comparing the web2py DAL to the JPA. That for me has been the biggest barrier. Took a bit of wrapping my head around but once I reached the 'aha' moment, I fell in love with web2py. Took me less than a week to read the entire 600+ pages of the web2py book.

So yes, web2py would require some mind twisting, because the kind of productivity you get with this framework will initially seem and feel unbelievable, but give it time, let the power of web2py sink in, you'll be amazed.  

On Thursday, 6 May 2010 05:37:36 UTC, Anthony wrote:

I am brand new to web application development, and I'm looking for a
good web framework to learn in order to build a new web application
(sort of a personal task/project management system). I want it to look
(and act) like a serious, polished, state-of-the-art Web 2.0 site/app
(i.e., not amateurish or out-dated). I've got some experience with
website building, HTML, CSS, and a little javascript. I don't have any
experience with server-side coding, but I do have general programming
experience (i.e., not web/internet related) as well as some experience
with relational databases and SQL.

I'm looking for a framework that will be relatively easy to learn,
though I'm just as concerned with how easy it is to go through the
learning process (i.e., find well-organized documentation, tutorials,
examples, community support, etc.) as with the conceptual simplicity/
easiness of the framework itself (i.e., I don't mind learning
something hard if I've got good learning resources).

Also, rather than creating everything from scratch, I'm hoping to rely
as much as possible on existing libraries, plug-ins, applications,
examples, etc. So, a framework that's compatible with as large a
universe as possible of existing solutions would be ideal. I'm also
planning to link to various web service API's (e.g., Google Calendar).

From what I've read, web2py sounds like a great framework --
comprehensive, well-integrated, easy to set up, learn, and deploy,
etc. However, although it sounds good on paper, I haven't yet found a
single site built with web2py that looks all that impressive (at least
superficially). It's easy to find quite a number of sophisticated and
impressive looking sites/apps built with Ruby on Rails and Django, but
I haven't seen anything remotely comparable based on web2py. I'm

wondering why the disparity. Is it simply that web2py is a relative
newcomer and has a small user base, or does web2py have some inherent
limitations that make it less than ideal for building polished, larger
scale web apps? In other words, could a site like Basecamp
(www.basecamphq.com) be built just as easily with web2py as with ROR,
or is web2py not really suited for that level of development?

I'm also wondering about the long term viability of web2py. I don't

want to adopt a framework that ends up fizzling out in a couple years.
Is web2py on an upward trajectory, or is its future uncertain? For
example, I notice that the web2py-developers group has only about one
tenth as many members as even the Pylons and TurboGears developer
groups (and one one hundreth as many as ROR and Django). Is web2py too
dependent on just one or two key developers who may lose interest over
time?