I'm Paul Bissex, and e-scribe.com is my consulting business. I build web applications using open source software, especially Django. In the '90s I did graphic design for newspapers and magazines. Then I wrote technology commentary and reviews for Wired, Salon.com, Chicago Tribune, and lots of little places you've never heard of. Feel free to email me.
I'm co-author of "Python Web Development with Django", an excellent guide to my favorite web framework. Published by Addison-Wesley, it is available from Amazon and your favorite technical bookstore as well.
Built using Django, served by Apache and mod_wsgi. 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.
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
At least 70644 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.
I quietly launched my first production Django site today, a replacement for a mess of legacy third-party PHP code. Unfortunately, it's a members-only service related to my job and so I don't have a public URL to share.
A couple interesting points: the new site was developed alongside the still-live legacy PHP apps, using some of the same data -- including a user table that's used for authentication. django-admin.py inspectdb made model creation fairly easy. I also found Scott Hurring's PHPSerialize module indispensible for working with the highly crufty legacy data.
This seems like a good time to thank all the authors and contributors to Django, as well as the folks who have answered my questions on IRC and the people who have taken the time to write up their experiences in technical detail.
It was a lot of work, and frankly I could have knocked out a PHP version in much less time. But I wanted to set the stage for cleaner, saner development in the future. I only expect to get faster.
More to come -- some of it open to the public, even.
Do you mean details on using the legacy data, or more general comments?
Thanks for reading! Please note: Your comment will not appear until approved, which may take a few hours or more. Spammers will be torpedoed.
A different kind of URL shortener
4 comments
The syncbox
2 comments
Branching and merging in real life
8 comments
Summer Spam
1 comment
SPF-enabled spam domains
1 comment
Brian Johnson
A different kind of URL shortener
Yesterday
Adrian Holovaty
A different kind of URL shortener
3 days ago
Ian Bicking
A different kind of URL shortener
4 days ago
aman
Sort tables with sorttable.js
10 days ago
spiele
Let's play a game: BASIC vs. Ruby vs. Python vs. PHP
42 days ago
Copyright 2010
by Paul Bissex
and E-Scribe New Media
Willing to share some experience with the transition?