Using Python on the WWW

Guido van RossumCNRI

guido@python.org

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

Personal web history

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

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)

1994

• I didn’t get CGI!– Mike McLay & Steve Majewski wrote

first CGI module

• Eventually I caught up– Standard cgi module supports file

upload &c

1995

• I moved to CNRI• Grail browser started

– as demo for annotating web pages– anecdote: Bob Kahn didn’t get open

source, withdrew source distribution

• HTML 3.2, Python applets

1999

• last release of Grail (0.6)• gave up against netscape & IE• still useful for minority platforms

• URL: http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us

Python and the web

Who uses Python on the web?

• Infoseek’s Ultraseek– site search engine– written in Python except for engine

code

• Yahoo mail

Standard modules

• asyncore/asynchat• urllib;httplib, ftplib, ...; socket• smtplib, nntplib, ...• cgi• “sgmllib”, htmllib• SimpleHttpServer &c

Standard tools

• webchecker, websucker• ftpmirror

3rd party modules

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