Using Python on the WWW

1
Using Python on the WWW

• Guido van Rossum
• CNRI
• guido_at_python.org

2
Python Today

• OO scripting, prototyping, etc.
• Free, Open Source, portable, etc.
• large collection of useful software
• Active, enthousiastic community
• newsgroups, mailing lists, websites
• Python Consortium being formed
• several books, more under way
• Suitable for large projects

3
Personal web history
4
1992

• Python existed and had socket code GUI code
  (stdwin)
• First heard of WWW, used line mode browser to
  learn about it
• No mosaic yet one graphical browser (Viola), no
  source code
• Interest piqued

5
First graphical web browser in Python

• http 0.9 - trivial w. Python sockets
• html 1.0 (?) - event-driven parser
• formatter - several variants
• line mode browser followed
• feedback to Marc Andreessen
• Python still has all these components (much
  evolved)

6
1994

• I didnt get CGI!
• Mike McLay Steve Majewski wrote first CGI
  module
• Eventually I caught up
• Standard cgi module supports file upload c

7
1995

• I moved to CNRI
• Grail browser started
• as demo for annotating web pages
• anecdote Bob Kahn didnt get open source,
  withdrew source distribution
• HTML 3.2, Python applets

8
1999

• last release of Grail (0.6)
• gave up against netscape IE
• still useful for minority platforms
• URL http//grail.cnri.reston.va.us

9
Python and the web
10
Who uses Python on the web?

• Infoseeks Ultraseek
• site search engine
• written in Python except for engine code
• Yahoo mail

11
Standard modules

• asyncore/asynchat
• urllibhttplib, ftplib, ... socket
• smtplib, nntplib, ...
• cgi
• sgmllib, htmllib
• SimpleHttpServer c

12
Standard tools

• webchecker, websucker
• ftpmirror

13
3rd party modules

• HTMLgen
• DocumentTemplate
• cookie module
• XML SIG
• Linbot
• Zope