A Call for Members of Panels on Web Technologies

Talks at previous PyCons have tended to be of the lecture format. I'd like to see if we can get some panel discussions going and am looking for participants.

At PyCon 2005 in D.C. Michelle Levesque gave a wonderful talk, PyWebOff, contrasting a few of the web frameworks. However, it is a lot of work to research many of them, so how about instead we just invite some experts for the various frameworks to debate them instead? And answer tough questions from the audience?

For updating, there are links to the following rough outlines on the PyCon TalkIdeas wiki page.

We need some moderators to work up more questions, and to coordinate with the panelists. Hey, it may be easier than preparing your own presentation and slides.

I'd like to see three talk panels:

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"Panel - Web Frameworks"

Frameworks:

• Django
• Zope 2
• Zope 3
• Twisted Web
• Quixote
• TurboGears
• CherryPy (part of TurboGears but also used separately)
• Pylons
  
• Spyce
  
• web.py
  
• Webware for Python
  

Questions for the Panel:

• When did the framework come into existence and what problem was it created to solve?
• Why did the frameworks that existed at the time not meet your particular needs?
  
• What are its strengths and maturity level? What is it ideal to use for?
• What are its weaknesses? What would you NOT use it for?
• Which frameworks let me plug in my choice of template language?

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"Panel - Web Templating Languages"

Template Languages:

• Zope TAL, TALES, METAL
• Twisted STAN
• Cheetah
• Myghty
• Django's Template Language
• TurboGears Kid
• Quixote Python Template Language (PTL)

Questions for the Panel:

• Python code in your HTML, or HTML in your code?
• Which can and cannot be handed off to a graphics designer?
• Where do they stand in performance? in Caching?
• Which can work with less than a page i.e. Zope viewlets, widgets?

(initially show the audience a representative sample of each)

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"Panel - Object Relational Mappers (ORMs)"

Mappers Covered:

• SQLObject
• SQLAlchemy
• Django ORM

Questions for the Panel:

• Natural or artificial keys?
• Support for existing database schemas or must I do it your way?
• How is the performance?
• How smart is it in handling complex schema?
• Any support for access control security at the object level?
• What flavor and degree of transaction support is offered? Per thread, per context, autocommit?
• Can a single app easily access multiple databases at the same time (not just different tables within the same db)?
• Can a single app easily access multiple databases at the same time (not just different tables within the same db)?