replacing ASP/VBScript with Python

[Peter Maas]

I have inherited an extremely messy ASP/VBScript application which
is a pain for me to support. Now the customer is thinking about a
redesign. I'd like to rewrite the whole thing in Python but the app
has to meet some conditions like

- IIS frontend
- MSSQL db server
- Win32 authentication
- No 'ugly' URLs like http://server/cgi-bin/frontend.cgi?main.py
- Performance: intranet with ~ 1000 users

My personal preferences:

- I'd rather do this in plain Python than using e.g. Zope because I
fear the additional complexity of handling Zope and make it seam-
lessly work with IIS.
- I'd like to do session handling in Python because ASP's session
object is quite limited and some of the ASP app's mess is caused
by trying to use it for compound data type storage. OTOH I could
pickle Python objects to a string and store that in an ASP session.

Thanks for any help.

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Peter Maas, M+R Infosysteme, D-52070 Aachen, Tel [phone]
E-mail 'cGV0ZXIubWFhc0 BtcGx1c3IuZGU=\ n'.decode('base 64')
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[Peter Maas]

Peter Maas schrieb:

I have inherited an extremely messy ASP/VBScript application which
is a pain for me to support. Now the customer is thinking about a
redesign. I'd like to rewrite the whole thing in Python but the app
has to meet some conditions like

[...]

Just noticed that this posting doesn't contain any questions. Here
they are:

Any comments? Has anybody done something comparable successfully and
give some advice?

Thanks in advance.

:)

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Peter Maas, M+R Infosysteme, D-52070 Aachen, Tel [phone]
E-mail 'cGV0ZXIubWFhc0 BtcGx1c3IuZGU=\ n'.decode('base 64')
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[Diez B. Roggisch]

> Just noticed that this posting doesn't contain any questions. Here

they are:

Any comments? Has anybody done something comparable successfully and
give some advice?

Thanks in advance.

You did not really give much information of what your application does -
e.g. for a CMS, I'd strongly recommend a zope based solution. Other apps
might be better written in other frameworks.
--
Regards,

Diez B. Roggisch

[Peter Maas]

Diez B. Roggisch schrieb:

You did not really give much information of what your application does -
e.g. for a CMS, I'd strongly recommend a zope based solution. Other apps
might be better written in other frameworks.

It's a procurement app. Users (employees) can search in a product list
and generate orders to the company's internal or external suppliers.
The orders are stored in a database and emails are generated to the
addresses of the buyer and the suppliers. There is no direct interface
to an erp app (like SAP).

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Peter Maas, M+R Infosysteme, D-52070 Aachen, Tel [phone]
E-mail 'cGV0ZXIubWFhc0 BtcGx1c3IuZGU=\ n'.decode('base 64')
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[Peter Maas]

Peter Maas schrieb:

I have inherited an extremely messy ASP/VBScript application which
is a pain for me to support. Now the customer is thinking about a
redesign. I'd like to rewrite the whole thing in Python but the app
has to meet some conditions like

- IIS frontend
- MSSQL db server
- Win32 authentication
- No 'ugly' URLs like http://server/cgi-bin/frontend.cgi?main.py
- Performance: intranet with ~ 1000 users

In the meantime I have searched the internet and found plenty of options:

- plain cgi with fastcgi and mod_rewrite for IIS to transform the URL
- quixote cgi with fastcgi and mod_rewrite
- Webware + wkcgi
- Python ASP (registering Python with Pywin32 as ASP language)
- mxODBC + SQL ODBC driver
- pyADO + SQL MDAC driver

I'm now confident that it is doable and keen on finding out. The usual
question: what is the one and best way to do it? ;)

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Peter Maas, M+R Infosysteme, D-52070 Aachen, Tel [phone]
E-mail 'cGV0ZXIubWFhc0 BtcGx1c3IuZGU=\ n'.decode('base 64')
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[D H]

Peter Maas wrote:

Peter Maas schrieb:

I have inherited an extremely messy ASP/VBScript application which
is a pain for me to support. Now the customer is thinking about a
redesign. I'd like to rewrite the whole thing in Python but the app
has to meet some conditions like

- IIS frontend
- MSSQL db server
- Win32 authentication
- No 'ugly' URLs like http://server/cgi-bin/frontend.cgi?main.py
- Performance: intranet with ~ 1000 users

In the meantime I have searched the internet and found plenty of options:

- plain cgi with fastcgi and mod_rewrite for IIS to transform the URL
- quixote cgi with fastcgi and mod_rewrite
- Webware + wkcgi
- Python ASP (registering Python with Pywin32 as ASP language)
- mxODBC + SQL ODBC driver
- pyADO + SQL MDAC driver

Can those do Windows authentication though? I guess you could with
Python ASP. If you really are stuck with ASP/IIS/Windows, then you
might find using boo or ironpython easier since they work with .NET.
I'm just saying it is an option, not that you shouldn't use CPython.
- I'd like to do session handling in Python because ASP's session
object is quite limited and some of the ASP app's mess is caused
by trying to use it for compound data type storage. OTOH I could
pickle Python objects to a string and store that in an ASP session.

For storing complex data objects, instead of pickle, you can either use
..NET serialization: http://boo.codehaus.org/XML+Serialization
or db4objects, a GPL tool: http://www.db4o.com/
There is a sample of using boo with db4o here:
http://db4oboobrowser.sourceforge.net/
Or ORMs like Gentle.NET can work with MSSQL:
http://www.mertner.com/confluence/display/Gentle/Home