Resources

HTMLgen site: http://starship.python.net/lib.html. Robin Friedrich (friedrich@pythonpros.com) maintains a home page for HTMLgen at this Python site. The HTMLgen documentation is browsable directly at this site. Thanks are due to Robin for creating HTMLgen and for responding so promptly to the questions I raised while writing this article.

Python.org: http://www.python.org/ is the official Python site containing heaps of Python stuff. Python comes with a very good Language Reference Manual and Library Manual.

Programming Python, Mark Lutz. O'Reilly & Associates, 1996; Internet Programming with Python, Watters, Rossum, Ahlstrom. M&T Books, 1996. For those who'd like a book on Python, these are your choices. I've no firm opinions on which is the best, but I suspect they both have something to offer. Neither book discusses HTMLgen, but Watters, et al., present examples of their own code for generating HTML. Since these two were published back in 1996, they don't cover the latest leading-edge Python developments.

Scripting: Higher Level Programming for the 21st Century, John K. Ousterhout, IEEE Computer, March 1998. For anyone who is interested in scripting versus conventional languages, this article presents a case for the wider use of scripting languages.

I couldn't write an article about Python and the Web without mentioning one other very interesting Python web interface, namely Bobo, found at http://www.digicool.com/. Digital Creations is giving away Bobo, the Python Object Publisher. Bobo allows any Python object to be accessed via the Web without requiring any CGI-specific coding. Bobo handles the marshaling of data, exception handling, authentication and authorization. It can also be combined with persistence mechanisms.