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What web framework to choose [closed]

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I'm comming from java world (apache wicket) and need to use python for my project.
I've heard about Turbogear2, Pyramid(Pylons) or Django and read some about them.
My first choice will be TurboGears2 built on top of Pylons, with tools already packaged, but
perhaps someone as some advice.
I do not need to create a lot of content like wikis or blog, but represent and
give access to some objects in my database, and then build a javascript interface
to work on this data.
What I need the web framework to to for me :
authentication system with roles (admin, user, group,...)
use of enhanced javascript tools like dojo outside the app, but
it would be good if I could share components between the app and the javascript library.
easy AJAX : components have to be refreshed 'onChange' (I don't like submit buttons)
a good ORM. Don't know SQLAlchemy but it seems nice, mapping object to/from database, database pooling,....
easy deployment (coming from java I think it will be ok ;))
add easily css or js to pages
a framework that don't break my nerves ;)
a good documentation and/or good support
threading/multiprocess support (there are a lot of calculations. Some of them taking huge amout of memory, some other taking
processing time. So I want to be able to lauch procees out of application. But I think it's more about using a python library
and nothing to do with this question? )
THX

For myself, mako + sqlalchemy in Pyramid are what seal the deal. If you're into some decent DB work, SqlAlchemy is just the best to work with. I'm also a big fan of the mako templates. The ability to create presentation type functions in mako itself that are reusable vs trying to do things in python modules that you end up trying to import in is a plus in my book.
What I really wanted to mention is that for your final item, you should really look at farming that stuff out to outside workers by using a message queue and something like Celery to do the work and use the web app more for submission/results display than actually trying to split the work out of your web application.

As pointed out by S.Lott in his comment, your requirements do not give a clear-cut "winner" as at least most of the frameworks have that capability.
Three dimensions along which which python web framework diverge more are IMO:
Closeness to the concept of "pythonic"
Lightness
Overhead
Typically lighter frameworks will: require more overhead and have a more pythonic approach (webpy, cherrypy...), while heavier frameworks (django, turbogear...) will let you have your app up and running in minutes but will somehow oblige you to shape your code in a certain (logical but not necessarily pythonic) way.
That said, I believe 95% of your answer relies on personal preference.
HTH!

In addition to the frameworks you have mentioned, you should definitely check out web2py. I think you'll find it among the easiest to set up, learn, and use, particularly given the breadth of functionality it offers. One if its primary goals is to not "break your nerves." It includes an excellent authentication system; integrated Javascript/AJAX support (see also components); a fast and powerful database abstraction layer; web services; automatic RESTful API generation; great documentation; and a very helpful and responsive mailing list. Development is very active, with new releases at least every month (without ever breaking backward compatibility). Here is a recent presentation.

An opinion piece...
I like the character of Pylons (now replaced by Pyramid) and the wide support of new initiatives by the Django framework (though not its keeness to reinvent so many wheels - esp. MVC).
I like the Data Abstraction Layer in Web2py that enables deployment to Google's AppEngine. This was a key feature in making my decision. Web2py is RoR inspired which some may shirk but which I've appreciated and so far hasn't blocked any development path.
In the end having tried several frameworks I've used Web2py (using the offical book as reference). A great community with very fast response.

Django, Turbo Gears, Web2Py, which is better for what?

I got a project in mind that makes it worth to finally take the plunge into programming.
After reading a lot of stuff, here and elsewhere, I'm set on making Python the one I learn for now, over C# or java. What convinced me the most was actually Paul Graham's excursions on programming languages and Lisp, though Arc is in the experimental stage, which wouldn't help me do this web app right now.
As for web app fast, I've checked out Django, Turbo Gears and Py2Web. In spite of spending a lot of time reading, I still have no clue which one I should use.
1) Django certainly has the nicest online presence, and a nicely done onsite tutorial, they sure know how to show off their thing.
2) Web2Py attracted me with its no-install-needed and the claim of making Django look complicated. But when you dig around on their website, you quickly find content that hasn't been updated in years with broken external links... There's ghosts on that website that make someone not intimately familiar with the project worry if it might be flatlining.
3) Turbo Gears ...I guess its modular too. People who wrote about it loved it... I couldn't find anything specific that might make it special over Django.
I haven't decided on an IDE yet, though I read all the answers to the Intellisense code completion post here. Showing extra code snippets would be cool too for noobs like me, but I suppose I should choose my web frame work first and then pick an editor that will work well with it.
Since probably no framework is hands down the best at everything, I will give some specifics on the app I want to build:
It will use MySQL, it needs register/sign-in, and there will be a load of simple math operations on data from input and SQL queries. I've completed a functional prototype in Excel, so I know exactly what I want to build, which I hope will help me overcome my noobness. I'll be a small app, nothing big.
And I don't want to see any HTML while building it ;-)
PS: thanks to the people running Stackoverflow, found this place just at the right moment too!

You should look at the web2py online documentation (http://web2py.com/book). It comes with a Role Based Access Control (the most general access control mechanism) and it is very granular, you can grant access for specific operation on specific records. It comes with a web based IDE but you can use WingIDE, Eclipse and PyCharm too. It comes with helper system that allows you to generate HTML without using HTML. Here is an example of a complete app that requires users to register/login/post messages:
db.define_table('message',Field('body'),Field('author',db.auth_user))
#auth.requires_login()
def index():
db.message.author.default=auth.user.id
db.message.author.writable=False
return dict(form=crud.create(db.message),
messages=db(db.message.id>0).select())
The web2py project is very active as you can see from the list of changes http://code.google.com/p/web2py/source/list
If you have web2py related questions I strongly suggest you join the web2py mailing list:
http://groups.google.com/group/web2py/topics
We are very active and your questions will be answered very quickly.

I have to say as not particularly skilled developer, the speed at which I have been able to create using web2py has blown my mind. In large part due to the amazing community and the core value Massimo has of making the framework accessible.
When I started I had written 0 lines of code in Python
Never heard of web2py
I've been at it seriously for about a month and have progressed (in my usual fashion) from asking questions that no one could answer (because they didn't make any sense) to coding for hours at a time without picking up a book or asking a question.
I'm really impressed.

I've had positive experiences with Django.
Built-In Authentication and easy to use extensions for registration
Very good documentation
You probable write your HTML templates mostly in base.html, then just use template inheritance (Note: You'll need to write at least a little bit of HTML)
In contrast to Turbogears, Django is more 'out-of-the-box'
I don't have any experience with web2py, but from my impression, it tries to do a little to much 'out-of-the-box'

If you decide to go with Django, make sure that you use its Generic Views. They will save you from writing lots of code, both Python and HTML.
Also, unless there is a very specific reason for you to use MySQL, I advise you to switch to PostgreSQL. Django is much more oriented towards PostgreSQL and it's a much better database anyway.
The online Django documentation is great, this is what put it apart from all the other frameworks. I also recommend the book Practical Django Projects by James Bennett

Django: Heard it has the best administrative
interface. But uses it's own ORM, i.e. doesn't use SQL-Alchemy.
Web2py: Didn't research this.
Turbogears2:
Uses SQL-Alchemy by default, uses Catwalk for admin
interface, but documentation isn't as
great.
I chose Turbogears2 because it uses popular components, so I didn't have to learn anything new...

I've used both web2py and RoR extensively, and while RoR has gotten a lot of popularity and support in the past few years, web2py is simpler, cleaner, less "magical", and yet also offers more (useful) out-of-the-box functionality. I'd say that web2py has more potential than RoR, but it is a relatively new framework and does yet not have the maturity of RoR. (Despite that, though, I'd choose web2py over RoR any day...)

If you "don't want to see any HTML while building it" then you can forget Django. It is not focused on "point-click-done," it is focused on pros going from concept to production in the shortest time possible. The hierarchical nature of the templating language can lead to some very clean overall site layouts. I use Django for all of my larger sites and I love it.
Although it's written in PHP, not Python, you might take a look at the major new version of WordPress that came out about 2 or 3 months ago. In 3.0 they have come a long way from being a "blogs only" environment and there are tons of ready-made templates for it. Of course if you want to tweak a template, well, there's that nasty old HTML again. I am considering using it for my smaller clients that can't deal with the admin of a dedicated server, etc., that tends to come with a Django site.
Update:
Ah, I missed the semi-joke -- I was up too early and that tends to make me tone deaf to humor. As far as using templates from existing sites, I have done this quite successfully with a couple of sites, both those that were static and those originally driven by well-written PHP scripts. I recommend a careful reading of the {% extends %} and {% include %} docs. Both take either a string literal or a variable. I have used the later method and it can be quite useful for a site that has strong hierarchy distinguished by style changes across branches.
It is also worth the time to understand the search order for templates -- it can be used to good effect, but it can be puzzling if you don't grok it. See the template-related items in the settings.py file for this and other useful goodies.

How to generate basic CRUD functionality in python given a database tables

I want to develop a desktop application using python with basic crud operation. Is there any library in python that can generate a code for CRUD functionality and user interface given a database table.

Hopefully, this won't be the best option you end up with, but, in the tradition of using web-interfaces for desktop applications, you could always try django. I would particularLY take a look at the inspectdb command, which will generate the ORM code for you.
The advantage is that it won't require that much code to get off the ground, and if you just want to use it from the desktop, you don't need a webserver; you can use the provided test server. The bundled admin site is easy to get off the ground, and flexible up to a point; past which people seem to invest a lot of time battling it (probably a testimony to how helpful it is at first).
There are many disadvantages, not the least of which is the possibility of having to use html/javascript/css when you want to start customizing a lot.

If it were me, I would consider borrowing django's ORM, but then again, I'm already familiar with it.
Having said that, I like working with it, it's usable outside the framework, and it will give you mysql, postgres, or sqlite support. You could also hook up the django admin site to your models and have a web-based editor.
There are surely other ORMs and code generators out there too (I hope some python gurus will point some out, I'm kind of curious).

If you want something really small and simple, I like the Autumn ORM.
If you use the Django ORM, you can use the automatically-generated Django admin interface, which is really nice. It's basically a web-based GUI for browsing and editing records in your database.
If you think you will need advanced SQL features, SQLAlchemy is a good way to go. I suspect for a desktop application, Django or Autumn would be better.
There are other Python ORMs, such as Storm. Do a Google search on "python ORM". See also the discussion on this web site: What are some good Python ORM solutions?

How to make Satchmo work in Google App Engine

I understand that there are big differences in data-store, but surely since django is bundled and it abstracts data-store away from Satchmo, something can be done?
Truth is that I am not a Python guy, been mostly Java/PHP thus far, but I am willing to learn.
Plus, if this is not possible today, lets band together and form a new Open Source project to "extend" satchmo or perhaps branch it, for compatibility?

Possible if:
Someone writes a generic ORM to Bigtable mapper. Most probably, Appengine Patch Guys
Someone rewrites the views and models of Satchmo to remove existing ORM queries and use the minimal functionality of the ORM provided by the patch project, should be either you or the Satchmo guys.
Someone hacks around a lot using the django helper project, can only be helper project guys.

You can't. There are alot of dependencies in Satchmo that you aren't allowed to install on AppEngine.
See this thread as well: http://groups.google.com/group/satchmo-users/browse_thread/thread/509265ccd5f5fc1e?pli=1

Nothing is impossible - this will just require lots of effort - if there will be somebody wishing to do so - why not? But it might be easier (cheaper) to get Django friendly hosting instead of spending hours on hacking the code.

What's the best Django search app? [closed]

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Closed 10 years ago.
I'm building a Django project that needs search functionality, and until there's a django.contrib.search, I have to choose a search app. So, which is the best? By "best" I mean...
easy to install / set up
has a Django- or at least Python-friendly API
can perform reasonably complex searches
Here are some apps I've heard of, please suggest others if you know of any:
djangosearch
django-sphinx
I'd also like to avoid using a third-party search engine (like Google SiteSearch), because some of the data I'd like to index is for site members only and should not be public.

Check out Haystack Search - a new model based search abstraction layer that currently supports Xapian, Solr and Whoosh. Looks like it's well supported and documented.

Justin, I'd try djangosearch first: Jacob Kaplan-Moss (Django's lead developer) is working on it.
Potential hazards:
The home page warns the API might not be entirely stable
Potential benefits:
“The long term goal is for this to become django.contrib.search.”

I am searching for the same thing, as are a lot of other people. Let's hope that django.contrib.search will be added soon.
In the meantime, this is what I found:
http://code.google.com/p/djangosearch/
http://code.google.com/p/django-sphinx/
http://code.google.com/p/djapian/
http://code.google.com/p/django-search-lucene/
http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/postgres/gist/tsearch/V2/
To me, most look quite complicated and, frankly, a little daunting to implement.
I'd be interested to learn what you think of these.

The google code page for djangosearch indicates that it is no longer under active development, and suggests haystack or solango.

I'd recommend Sphinx for full-text search and aggregation, and django-sphinx is good enough for production use. We found that Sphinx was the least resource-intensive and fastest way to index and search our documents and that django-sphinx was a nice wrapper on top of the sphinx client.
The group by aggregation is particularly nice, if for example you want to display how many documents with a certain tag or by a certain author (or both) matched a search. In memory attribute updates were convenient too, especially for removing deleted articles immediately.

Thanks Garth. I had seen that djangosearch wanted to become the official Django search, but I was hesitant to use it because I couldn't find any documentation! Luckily, there's a README in subversion that I hadn't seen before, and it makes the API look very cool:
# set up the model
class Event(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length=255)
date = models.DateField()
is_outdoors = models.BooleanField()
index = djangosearch.ModelIndex(text=['title'],
additional=['date', 'is_outdoors'])
# run a search
results = Event.index.search("django conference")

I just needed a very quick solution that was no-fuss for an internal app.
I found the article Adding search to Django in a snap, and that worked splendid for me!
Obviously it lacks the speed, scalability and features of the real projects like Haystack, but this one is easier to set up, and I don't really need anything else than keyword AND-search.

You might want to consider letting Yahoo do all the hard work with their Build your own Search Service (BOSS). Here is a great blog post that walks you through the process:
http://www.peterkrantz.com/2008/yahoo-search-in-django/

It looks like everyone here missed django-xappy
After quick evaluation of all existing search addons for Django, I found this one as most flexible and easiest to use. It's rough on the edges in few places, but it's still the best way to use power of Xapian search engine inside Django projects.

You might want to look at Django Solr search (aka "Solango") which comes with some nice documentation to get you started...

If you have large amount of data to be indexed or you expect high traffic, I'd suggest using some external search engine, like Solr. This way, you'll keep shared-nothing approach and be able to scale your site components independently.

I think I am going to have to give a shout out to Djapian.
It is rock-solid...just pull down a source distribution and peek inside. Top notch code, not very many comments tho..
It's still a young software project, but I think the django community should throw it's weight behind this one.

Thanks Joe,
We decided to go with Tsearch2 and a custom postgres adaptor. Tsearch2 does not need an extra process to run, which was convenient since we are on a WebFaction hosting with limited memory... It's not completely done yet, but seems to be a good solution...

I found Djoosh which relies on the pure-python external search engine Whoosh to work well with my 'Python' brain.

If you are willing to use a 3rd party search engine I can recommend Yahoo BOSS and django-bosssearch.
Yahoo BOSS is a paid service, but it saves you setting up and maintaining other search software on your server.