python html integration

Question

this is a complete n00b question and i understand i may get voted down for asking this but i am totally confused over python's html integration. as i understand one way to integrate python with html code is by using mod_python. now, is there any other way or method that is more effective for using python with html?

please advise me on this as i am new to learning python and could use some help. some pointers to code samples would be highly appreciated.

thanks a lot.

EDIT: also what i would like to know is, how does PyHP and mod_python compare with regards to each other. i mean how are they different? and Django? what is Django all about?

Answer 1

You can read a tutorial on how to use Python in the web.

http://docs.python.org/howto/webservers.html

In few words, mod_python keeps python interpreter in memory ready to execute python scripts, which is faster than launching it every time. It doesn't let you integrate python in html like PHP. For this you need to use a special application, like PyHP (http://www.pyhp.org) or another (there are several of them). Read Python tutorial and documentation pages, there's plenty of info and links to many template and html-embedding engines.

Such engines as PyHP require some overhead to run. Without them, your python application must output HTTP response headers and the page as strings. Mod_wsgi and fastcgi facilitate this process. The page I linked in the beginning gives a good overview on that.

Also you may try Tornado, a python web server, if you don't need to stick to Apache.

Answer 2

I would suggest you to start with web.py

Answer 3

The standard way for Python web apps to talk to a webserver is WSGI. Also check out WebOb.

• http://www.wsgi.org/wsgi/
• http://pythonpaste.org/webob/

But for a complete noob I'd start with a complete web-framework (in which case you typically can ignore the links above). Django or Grok are both full-stack framworks that are easy to use and learn. Django is more popular, but Grok is built on 13 years of Web application publishing experience, and is seriously cool. The difference is a matter of taste.

• http://django.org/
• http://grok.zope.org/

If you want something more minimalistic, the worlds your oyster, there are an infinite amount of web frameworks for Python, from BFG to Turbogears.