Socheat Sou wrote:
After a brief, but informative, discussion on Freenode's #zope chatroom, I was advised to consult the gurus on c.l.p.
I'm working for a small company who is in desperate need to rewrite it's 15+ year old, flat-file, client-tracking database. The staff uses OSX, while I administer the couple linux servers we have to run our website and some internal sites. In our initial brainstorming session, we decided to go with a Python backend server, handling the database and business logic, and a native Cocoa application on the client side, with enough glue to make the two stick.
Sounds like a plan, for a Mac house.
First of all, note that Twisted applications needn't be multi-threaded, as Twisted makes use of asynchronous interfaces. You *can* write multi-threaded code under Twisted, but you don't have to most of the time.Also, after a bit of research, I discovered Twisted and PB. I figured I'd have to write a customized backend to meet our needs. However, seeing as how 1) I've never written a netwo rk application before, let alone a multi-threaded application and 2) I'm the sole developer on this project, I was looking for as many API's, modules, frameworks, and/or prebuilt solutions as possible to help me out.
It isn't. Much too heavyweight, with much too steep a learning curve for what appears to be essentially a simple project.I initially thought of Zope because I had often heard it referred to as an application serv er, so I thought it might be something I could use as a basis, write the business logic, and have the Cocoa application, with some PyObjC, communicate with the Zope server. We're definately not looking for a web-based application, so I wasn't quite sure Zope was what I wa nted.
Who told you that MySQL was OO? It's a bog-standard relational back-end with transactional capabilities.For those that are interested, we're looking at using MySQL as the DBMS. From what little I know of OODBMS it doesn't seem like the right choice because aside from data entry and client record lookups, the biggest use of the database would be to generate reports and tabulated data on an arbitrary set of fields. I've read that this isn't exactly the strength of OODBMS?
So you need a(t least one) layer between the database and the client, which you plan to write in Python. This makes perfect sense. Almost everything you find about writing servers in Python is going to work for you, so Google away!We are also looking at a server-client architecture, rather than individual clients connecting to the database over the network, because there are some features the staff would like (such as something similar to message passing between each other, and also being able to administer connected users).
Mostly, remember that OSX is effectively just another U**x environment, so server structures that work under BSD and Linux will tend to work under OSX. The unique parts of OSX appear (from the outside) to be Carbon/Cocoa and the funky GUI stuff. So have at it and come back for advice when you need it. Good luck with your project.Does anyone here have any experience building an OSX application with Python running the show behind the scenes? I hope I didn't come off as asking "tell me what to do", but rather I would appreciate any advice or links to resources that might be helpful in this project.
[OBPyCon: of course, if you come to PyCon DC 2005 you can discuss this stuff with experts:
http://www.python.org/pycon/2005/register.html
The numbers tell us this could be the biggest PyCon ever!]
regards Steve -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/ Holden Web LLC +1 703 861 4237 +1 800 494 3119 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
