| Jim Gallacher 2006-12-02, 7:12 pm |
| Jorey Bump wrote:
> Hi, Jim:
>
> Jim Gallacher wrote:
>
> This is my first use of moinmoin, so I saved more frequently than
> necessary. I've already improved the page and discovered the preview
> button. 
I'm a moinmoin newbie myself. Everything I know about it I learned while
sipping my morning coffee today.
>
> Thanks for the tip.
The syntax highlighting with line number will be nice to have when
explaining code. I was certainly pleased when I stumbled upon it.
>
> I've explained this in the final draft, and moved on to using apache.OK
> in the next example. This handler is obviously meant to do nothing, but
> to the uninitiated, the mod_python voodoo is quite thick. We take it for
> granted, but I think a novice will appreciate that the return code
> should be an integer (after all, that's what the debugger complains
> about if there's a related error).
>
> One of the things we're up against is that I suspect a good chunk of our
> audience has no Python experience whatsoever, and they come to
> mod_python investigating alternatives to other web application
> development languages, like PHP. We can't assume they'll have many
> Python (or Apache) skills at all, so we should take the opportunity to
> ease them into basic concepts upfront (without dumbing it down, of course).
I suspect that many new mod_python users are familiar with Python but
have been forced to use php in the past and are desperate to return to
the sanity of python.
The lack of Apache knowledge is the bigger challenge. People don't
immediately grok the power of mod_python because the concept of
different processing phases in apache is completely foreign. If we can
crack that nut I think mod_python could become much more popular.
> You could argue that it would be silly for a novice to start out by
> writing a custom handler, but the mailing list indicates that it happens
> all of the time.
Even if someone has some mod_python experience writing a custom handler
for the first time can be a bit daunting, so I like your idea of
starting with something very simple and building from there.
Jim
|