Chapter 14. 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 by searching the Web and asking the App Engine Java forum.

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.