Greetings from Accra Ghana! Quite an old thread, but adding my 2 cents here for anyone who stumbles on this with a question similar to the OP.
Having been doing Java EE for almost 5 years now, I can say wholeheartedly web2py is the most time-saving, intuitive, common sense oriented framework I've ever used. The number of man hours I've spent on the massive plumbing (authentication, authorization, forms, menus, etc) that I get for free with web2py is just mind boggling. From RBAC to fully functional menus to a very powerful albeit deceptively simple data access framework, I can confidently posit that web2py is hands down, the best. However, if you're coming from the Java world, my very strong advise is to first unlearn the Java ORM-esque way of doing things. Specifically, you would not want to subconsciously be comparing the web2py DAL to the JPA. That for me has been the biggest barrier. Took a bit of wrapping my head around but once I reached the 'aha' moment, I fell in love with web2py. Took me less than a week to read the entire 600+ pages of the web2py book. So yes, web2py would require some mind twisting, because the kind of productivity you get with this framework will initially seem and *feel unbelievable*, but give it time, let the power of web2py sink in, you'll be amazed. On Thursday, 6 May 2010 05:37:36 UTC, Anthony wrote: > > I am brand new to web application development, and I'm looking for a > good web framework to learn in order to build a new web application > (sort of a personal task/project management system). I want it to look > (and act) like a serious, polished, state-of-the-art Web 2.0 site/app > (i.e., not amateurish or out-dated). I've got some experience with > website building, HTML, CSS, and a little javascript. I don't have any > experience with server-side coding, but I do have general programming > experience (i.e., not web/internet related) as well as some experience > with relational databases and SQL. > > I'm looking for a framework that will be relatively easy to learn, > though I'm just as concerned with how easy it is to go through the > learning process (i.e., find well-organized documentation, tutorials, > examples, community support, etc.) as with the conceptual simplicity/ > easiness of the framework itself (i.e., I don't mind learning > something hard if I've got good learning resources). > > Also, rather than creating everything from scratch, I'm hoping to rely > as much as possible on existing libraries, plug-ins, applications, > examples, etc. So, a framework that's compatible with as large a > universe as possible of existing solutions would be ideal. I'm also > planning to link to various web service API's (e.g., Google Calendar). > > From what I've read, web2py sounds like a great framework -- > comprehensive, well-integrated, easy to set up, learn, and deploy, > etc. However, although it sounds good on paper, I haven't yet found a > single site built with web2py that looks all that impressive (at least > superficially). It's easy to find quite a number of sophisticated and > impressive looking sites/apps built with Ruby on Rails and Django, but > I haven't seen anything remotely comparable based on web2py. I'm > wondering why the disparity. Is it simply that web2py is a relative > newcomer and has a small user base, or does web2py have some inherent > limitations that make it less than ideal for building polished, larger > scale web apps? In other words, could a site like Basecamp > (www.basecamphq.com) be built just as easily with web2py as with ROR, > or is web2py not really suited for that level of development? > > I'm also wondering about the long term viability of web2py. I don't > want to adopt a framework that ends up fizzling out in a couple years. > Is web2py on an upward trajectory, or is its future uncertain? For > example, I notice that the web2py-developers group has only about one > tenth as many members as even the Pylons and TurboGears developer > groups (and one one hundreth as many as ROR and Django). Is web2py too > dependent on just one or two key developers who may lose interest over > time? > > Any insights and advice would be much appreciated. Thanks. > -- Resources: - http://web2py.com - http://web2py.com/book (Documentation) - http://github.com/web2py/web2py (Source code) - https://code.google.com/p/web2py/issues/list (Report Issues) --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "web2py-users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
