Web Programming in Python: Techniques for Integrating Linux, Apache and MySQL
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Spotlight Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 4Customer Rating: 3
Summary: I could have been a very good book
Comment: This book had the right idea and its basic outline was well thought out. But when I tried some of the examples I found too many errors. There is no web site support for the errors in the code examples, or exercises by the author or publisher. So you are on your own.
In all fairness, the book contains a good presentation to Python, Linux and MySQL, and a good basic explanation of the Internet, Apache and CGI. However, I think most of us learn best by trying out the exercises after reading the theory, and it is here where the book is weak. Because there are too few complete exercises, many errors, no errata, and lack of web support I cannot recommend this book. Also, some of the exercises require the "Slither" libraries, which do not seem to be supported any longer. Furthermore, I haven't been able to find a place to download the code in this book.
Customer Rating: 4
Summary: Surprising breadth well explained
Comment: This book covers everything about getting a web application together. If you accept the Python Way, (a wise idea I think) you could look at the book as an attempted successor to Lincoln Stein's original compendium about how to serve web applications from top to bottom.
If you're a person who knows something about programming in general but not enough about programming for the web in specific, this book is just the thing to help you identify and fill in the gaps.
I do have a complaint that the writing could have been a bit smoother and the editing a bit more careful.
A far more serious flaw, though, is the authors' failure to keep the software framework on which the book is based up-to-date. The upshot is that while the book is very informative, it's unfortunately quite a slog getting the examples working.
While I recommend the book for its explanatory power, unfortunately it doesn't provide a direct path to getting your project online. If the framework were better maintained and documented, this could still turn out to be the only book you need.
Customer Rating: 2
Summary: Where are they now?
Comment: This books was a major disappointment. The ideas seem pretty solid, but the book no longer matches the code that is available online. The downloads are a mess. The book says to install slither using the instructions in the download, but there are no instructions in the download. Two users posted requests over a year ago for these instructions and the requests were totally ignored. In fact not much has happened over the past year. It really seems as if the authors have moved on. Slither seems to be dead.
On another note - this book is very academic. For example, there is a couple of pages of discussion about the different theorectical ways to design databases. But my needs are so simple, that I already knew I was going to use MySQL, so I just did not care about this discussion. Unfortunately there are lots of discussions like that in this book. So if you just wanna get something done fast, this might not be the book for you.