macOS Django and Cocoa?

[GorillaPaws]

I wanted to learn a bit of server-side coding to compliment the Cocoa programming skills I've been learning. I've dabbled with Python and really like how clean the syntax is. Also Django seems like a pretty slick tool (I've followed some of the basic tutorials and it's been painless thus far).

Do any of you have Django experience? I know Ruby on Rails is really popular with the Mac community, but Ruby looks like a nightmare to me (maybe the syntax grows on you?). Is Django just as effective in terms of providing small-scale web services for Cocoa apps? Are there any pitfalls I should watch out for? Other things to consider?

Thanks!

 

[Cromulent]

Django is certainly a decent tool and I would have continued learning it but my web host does not support Python and the project I was playing around with was not worth paying any extra money.

Aside from fiscal considerations though Django is worth using. Just note that performance is not be up to the same standard as Java or .Net though.

Edit: I should point out that I used Django to provide web services for iPhone clients.

 

[AlmostThere]

Django might be overkill, too many features you probably don't need if you are just providing some basic web services. I would look at CherryPy but it all depends on your goals, of course...

 

[HiRez]

I have used Django and it's pretty good (especially if you already know/like Python). One thing is, at least the last time I was using it, there is no data migration tool so if you change your DB schema you either have to wipe all your data or write your own migration routines to deal with the changes. I was using it with SQLite, which works pretty well, not sure how it performs with MySQL or Postgres or whatever.

But yeah, I would recommend it, it's a pretty well thought out framework, especially if you're doing some kind of content management, the purpose Django was originally developed for (newspapers), or date-based blog engine or such..

 

[GorillaPaws]

I just wanted to thank you guys for taking to time to share your wisdom. I checked out CherryPy and it does seem like a great lightweight tool for providing web services. The thing is that I suspect I might want to "grow into" some of django's more powerful features down the road (the build-in template and database interaction tools seem pretty compelling for example).

Thanks for the heads up about the lack of data migration tools. That's always good to know about BEFORE you build anything substantial