[Python-Dev] Improving the CGI module (original) (raw)

Steve Holden sholden at holdenweb.com
Wed Sep 17 21:22:29 EDT 2003

[Ping]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, Simon Willison wrote: > I've recently started using Python for server side web development, and > I've been running in to some limitations in the CGI module. [...] > The module also provides very little in the way of support for > common CGI related operations ...

I think that improvements to the CGI module would be wonderful, and we could do a lot of useful things ranging from the most basic (e.g. friendly access to the CGI environment variables) to more sophisticated things (e.g. constructing URLs that submit forms). I'd agree that there's lots of room for new web functionality, but having looked in some detail at the CGI module, and with backward compatibility in mind, I'd question whether changes to that module are the best way to do this.

(I have recently been forced to use PHP instead of Python for some major projects and constantly feel the pain of using PHP -- in my opinion, it is full of inconsistencies and workarounds, and really has the feel of a language that was not carefully designed. It would be nice for Python to be more competitive with PHP in its support for simple Web scripting.) Unfortunately the CGI modules itself appears to have "just growed" in a rather organic way. It could be that my analytic skills simply aren't up to a task which others will breeze through, but I suspect that it might be better to start with a different framework, relieving the project of the need to make the same mistakes that CGI did. New mistakes are always more interesting ;-)

I would be interested in helping with the CGI module project. My time is pretty limited, but I'd like to monitor such a project and snipe from the sidelines from time to time.

regards

Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ Interview with GvR August 14, 2003 http://www.onlamp.com/python/

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