Why did Quora choose Python (over PHP and others) for its development?
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: Why did Quora choose Python (over PHP and others) for its development?
#2The python/ruby thing seems to be at an interesting point. Python as a language has a bigger mindshare but none of the python web stacks has close to the adoption that rails does.
As far as I can tell there seems to be a lot more peripheral innovation in the ruby camp though, particularly in testing tools. Are there python equivalents to rspec, cucumber, factory_girl/machinist, shoulda, passenger, haml, webrat etc?
Re: Why did Quora choose Python (over PHP and others) for its development?
#3The python/ruby thing seems to be at an interesting point. Python as a language has a bigger mindshare but none of the python web stacks has close to the adoption that rails does. As far as I can tell there seems to be a lot more peripheral innovation in the ruby camp though, particularly in testing tools. Are there python equivalents to rspec, cucumber, factory_girl/machinist, shoulda, passenger, haml, webrat etc?
I'm not sure about the framework adoption thing, Django seems to be the major Python framework. I'm not saying there aren't others, but most newcomers to Python web dev quickly realize that Django is the name of the game.
Re: Why did Quora choose Python (over PHP and others) for its development?
#4The python/ruby thing seems to be at an interesting point. Python as a language has a bigger mindshare but none of the python web stacks has close to the adoption that rails does. As far as I can tell there seems to be a lot more peripheral innovation in the ruby camp though, particularly in testing tools. Are there python equivalents to rspec, cucumber, factory_girl/machinist, shoulda, passenger, haml, webrat etc?
I'm not sure about the framework adoption thing, Django seems to be the major Python framework. I'm not saying there aren't others, but most newcomers to Python web dev quickly realize that Django is the name of the game.
Yeah Django is definitely the big player. It's interesting though that python is bigger than ruby but rails is bigger than django.
Re: Why did Quora choose Python (over PHP and others) for its development?
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure about the framework adoption thing, Django seems to be the major Python framework. I'm not saying there aren't others, but most newcomers to Python web dev quickly realize that Django is the name of the game.
Yeah Django is definitely the big player. It's interesting though that python is bigger than ruby but rails is bigger than django.
Django is arguably the most used Python web stack, but it's also a much more controversial choice than Rails is in the Ruby world. I hear "you'll outgrow Django really quickly" a lot; whether that's true or not I can't say since I've never used it. Also, there seems to be a lot more choices for web frameworks in the Python world: Django, Pylons, web.py, Tornado, Flask, CherryPy, Zope etc. I'm not sure if this is the case in the Ruby world. All I ever hear about are Rails and Sinatra.
Re: Why did Quora choose Python (over PHP and others) for its development?
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah Django is definitely the big player. It's interesting though that python is bigger than ruby but rails is bigger than django.
Django is arguably the most used Python web stack, but it's also a much more controversial choice than Rails is in the Ruby world. I hear "you'll outgrow Django really quickly" a lot; whether that's true or not I can't say since I've never used it. Also, there seems to be a lot more choices for web frameworks in the Python world: Django, Pylons, web.py, Tornado, Flask, CherryPy, Zope etc. I'm not sure if this is the…
Yeah that may be true. I wonder how big the installed base of all those python frameworks is compared to rails. Hard to estimate I suppose.
The ruby world seems to focus its innovation around the major framework whereas the python world seems to be experimenting at a more fundamental level.
Re: Why did Quora choose Python (over PHP and others) for its development?
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure about the framework adoption thing, Django seems to be the major Python framework. I'm not saying there aren't others, but most newcomers to Python web dev quickly realize that Django is the name of the game.
Yeah Django is definitely the big player. It's interesting though that python is bigger than ruby but rails is bigger than django.
That's because Python is actually used extensively in the West outside the context of web development. Ruby really isn't. Rails became popular, and people decided to learn Ruby so they could use Rails. Most people who choose Python web frameworks do so because they are already familiar with Python.
Re: Why did Quora choose Python (over PHP and others) for its development?
#8The python/ruby thing seems to be at an interesting point. Python as a language has a bigger mindshare but none of the python web stacks has close to the adoption that rails does. As far as I can tell there seems to be a lot more peripheral innovation in the ruby camp though, particularly in testing tools. Are there python equivalents to rspec, cucumber, factory_girl/machinist, shoulda, passenger, haml, webrat etc?
I'm not sure about the framework adoption thing, Django seems to be the major Python framework. I'm not saying there aren't others, but most newcomers to Python web dev quickly realize that Django is the name of the game.
Django did receive Guido's bless: http://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2006/aug/07/guidointervi...
Re: Why did Quora choose Python (over PHP and others) for its development?
#9My biggest problem with Django is that the entire data model layer is designed with relational database in mind (i.e. normalization and JOINs). Many of the new data stores (RDF stores, Google Data Store for App Engine, etc) are inheritantly non-relational.
Re: Why did Quora choose Python (over PHP and others) for its development?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah Django is definitely the big player. It's interesting though that python is bigger than ruby but rails is bigger than django.
Django is arguably the most used Python web stack, but it's also a much more controversial choice than Rails is in the Ruby world. I hear "you'll outgrow Django really quickly" a lot; whether that's true or not I can't say since I've never used it. Also, there seems to be a lot more choices for web frameworks in the Python world: Django, Pylons, web.py, Tornado, Flask, CherryPy, Zope etc. I'm not sure if this is the…
There are actually a bunch of Ruby frameworks (ramaze, rango, waves, padrino, camping, halcyon, to name a few off the top of my head), but it seems Rails and Sinatra meet the needs for the vast majority of Ruby web developers.