About Me

PBX My name is Paul Bissex, and e-scribe.com is my consulting business. I build web applications using as much open source software as possible. From September to June I teach web design and other important non-photographic professional skills to photographers. In the '90s I wrote technology commentary and reviews for magazines, newspapers, and web publications, including Wired, Salon.com, FamilyPC, the late lamented Web Review, and the Chicago Tribune. Feel free to email me.

Colophon

This runs on Django, served by Apache and mod_python. The database is SQLite. The operating system is FreeBSD, on a VPS hosted at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet. Vintage topo imagery from the Maptech archive. The markup engine is Markdown.

The Book

Book cover I'm co-author of "Python Web Development with Django", an excellent guide to my favorite web framework. Published by Addison-Wesley in October 2008, it is available from Amazon and your favorite technical bookstore as well. Click on the book title above to learn more.

Pile o'Tags

Stuff I Use

Akismet, del.icio.us, Django, dpaste.com, Emacs, FreeBSD, Freenode, jQuery, LaunchBar, MacPorts, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Postfix, Python, SQLite, Subversion, TextMate, Trac, Ubuntu Linux, wmii

Spam Report

At least 45604 pieces of comment spam killed since January 12th, mostly via Akismet.

Turbogears and Subway to merge?

Looking at this ticket, endorsed by Subway creator Peter Hunt and this post by Turbogears creator Kevin Dangoor, there's clearly a non-zero chance that these two frameworks -- which are, as I noted in my initial post on Turbogears, very similar architecturally -- will join forces.

I agree with Kevin that "saving Python from Ruby" or whatever is not a goal worth focusing on. But focusing developer momentum behind a demonstrably popular web framework model is.

Saturday, December 31st, 2005
python + web frameworks
2 comments

Some related posts: The Language I Will Kind of Learn in 2008: Smalltalk • A little something I've been working on • YAPWF: Aaron Swartz's web.py released • TurboGears progress, or, bring on the CRUD • Controller freaks • YAPWF: TurboGears • Python web framework mania

• Comment from Mark Ramm , 2 days later

I agree, and I hope that developer momentum can be focused on making TurboGears the best possible framework in January-February so version 1.0 can be released. The Subway merge can bring in a lot of smart guys and good technology, and we can use the smart guys now. But actual technology may should come into the trunk as soon as 1.0 is out the door.

Then there will be lots of time for new features, evaluating existing components, and generally making TurboGears amazingly great for version 2.0.

All of the above is just my opinion, but I know people want a framework that they can use in real projects today, and that should be the first goal of the combined TurboGears/subway team. If we maintain focus, we can have 1.0 out the door in the next several weeks, and open things up for lots of interesting ideas in the 2.0 release.

"A time for everything, and everything in its time."

• Comment from Paul , 2 days later

Thanks for the note, Mark. Good luck with the book!