Python Web Frameworks Overview: Spyce

URL

http://spyce.sf.net

Licence

OSI approved licence - open source. (See http://spyce.sourceforge.net/download.html.)

Deployment Platforms

• Integrated with Apache using mod_python or with any Web server using CGI.
• With CGI, the lifespan of a program is determined by the Web server, but mod_python should provide long-lived processes.

Operating Systems

Spyce should work on most platforms.

Suitability

The deployment of applications using CGI is usually permitted in all but the most restrictive hosting environments. The use of mod_python may be more appropriate to in-house deployments or more comprehensive hosting environments.

Development Interfaces

• Python code inside HTML documents - comparable to ASP, JSP and PHP.
• Spyce modules can be written in Python to provide extra functionality.

Environment Access

• Access to resources is primarily done using the Python module system and other general environment access techniques.

Session, Identification and Authentication

• Support for sessions which identify users is included, currently only with filesystem support for stored session information, although SQL-based storage seems to be planned.
• No explicit authentication support seems to be included.

Persistence Support

• Apart from session information, no persistence mechanisms are included.

Presentation Support

• The embedded Python code concept gives a certain flexibility in presentation.
• The Cheetah templating system is explicitly supported through a Spyce module.

Other presentation systems could presumably be used instead, given the ability to use other Python modules in the framework.

Comments

Spyce addresses many areas of interest to Web application developers within a widely-known *SP paradigm: sessions, pooled objects, templating, and so on. Some novel features are also supported: automatons, for example, which attempt to encapsulate multi-stage transactions (or "application flows" as the documentation calls them). However, by design, Spyce does not attempt to provide everything - it aims to do dynamic Web content generation well and integrate with other things easily (see http://spyce.sourceforge.net/wishlist.html). Moreover, it can also be used as a standalone processing tool completely outside a Web application environment.