Programming Google App Engine, 2nd Edition

Chapter 18. The Django Web Application Framework

This chapter discusses how to use a major web application framework with the Python runtime environment. Java developers may be interested in the general discussion of frameworks that follows, but the rest of this chapter is specific to Python. Several frameworks for Java are known to work well with App Engine, and you can find information on these on the Web.

As with all major categories of software, web applications have a common set of problems that need to be solved in code. Most web apps need software to interface with the server’s networking layer, communicate using the HTTP protocol, define the resources and actions of the application, describe and implement the persistent data objects, enforce site-wide policies such as access control, and describe the browser interface in a way that makes it easily built and modified by designers. Many of these components involve complex and detailed best practices for interoperating with remote clients and protecting against a variety of security vulnerabilities.

A web application framework is a collection of solutions and best practices that you assemble and extend to make an app. A framework provides the structure for an app, and most frameworks can be run without changes to demonstrate that the initial skeleton is functional. You use the toolkit provided by the framework to build the data model, business logic, and user interface for your app, and the framework takes care of the details. ...