About Me

PBX 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.

Book

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.

Colophon

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.

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 71062 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

Web developer evolution

After the frameworks post I kept thinking about this. Of course any generalizations I make are heavily colored by my own direct experience, but the progression seems to go along these lines:

Make static web pages.
Make modular pages using simple includes (in SSI, PHP, ASP, or what have you).
Make pages with more involved functionality (form submissions to database, basic CRUD).
Get sick of re-building dynamic stuff for every project; write your own kinda portable library or framework.
Get sick of maintaining your own framework, then:
(a) find an existing framework that fits your philosophy and has support (commercial or open source community); use that. -- OR -- (b) Start an open source project to build the ultimate dream framework, then:
(a) Release it to great acclaim -- OR -- (b) Watch it wallow in obscurity; return to step 6.

I'm sure there are further steps in the chain, such as getting sick of web development altogether and moving to Costa Rica to start a solar-powered commune, but I haven't gotten there yet.

Sunday, May 21st, 2006
fun + web development + web frameworks