TurboGears? Hmmm. Try Django.

I'm going for 2.0.

Following the instructions here:

sudo easy_install -i http://www.turbogears.org/2.0/downloads/current/index tg.devtools

Naturally, I got complaints, so I had to do this:
easy_install -U setuptools

Nope. It seems that no force on earth can update the default MacOS install of setuptools, so I just deleted it. The newer one had been put into /usr/local/bin by previous attempts to update setuptools (which is what the error message told me to do.)

We're still gonna need db drivers, so
sudo easy_install MySQL_python

The driver for sqlite is allegedly already part of Python.

So back to the install of TurboGears. The 2.0 docs are full of talk of "virtual environments" which makes me queasy. The reason I'm doing Python is simplicity, and that shit is not simple.

Like RoR (and PHP's ZF as I discovered) there is a CLI tool that sets things up. It's called paster.

So we follow the directions here: http://turbogears.org/2.0/docs/main/QuickStart.html — very well written, btw.

paster quickstart
blah blah blah

This is hell! It's worse than the PHP stuff! I wanted to go Python for simplicity, but this is a Heavy Weight Framework. Sheesh. Oh, it looks like a nice enough framework, but I am not looking for a PhD in frameworks. I just wanna get my app out the door! And, most important, I need something that is ISP-friendly. I simply cannot imagine doing all these arcane gymnastics in a user directory without root access.

Along the way I did
sudo port install python_select

and I love it!

So a quick
sudo python_select python26
and off to install django:
sudo port install py26-django

Labels: python

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Front end to FMP

I need to build a Q&D front end for a FileMaker database. While the Server version of FileMaker ships with some PHP glue, I decided to go with a more familiar environment. Python! It's a nice language. I have some familiarity with it, and (most important of all) it works on the ISP's server.

I did a quick survey of some lightweight Python frameworks, and settled on TurboGears (with CherryPy) for the app itself. For the interface to FileMaker, I found PyFileMaker.

Ready to go! So, to begin with, I did a little spiking to kick the tires of PyFileMaker. Right out the gate, the results were disappointing. The code choked on my password! (Some regex seemed to believe that my password shouldn't contain special characters.) Not a problem: I created a special account for PyFileMaker (not a bad idea anyway for production) and got one teensy step further. I hit our FMP Server and asked for a list of databases. Kapow! Now PyFileMaker complained that one of the db names "contain unsupported characters." Pity it doesn't deign to tell me which one...

Well!

Foreseeing a life of misery and pain, I looked for a Ruby solution. A quick trip to the ISP... Whew! Ruby works there too. Anyway, it's high time I learned Ruby, so next stop, Rfm The visit to the six.fried.rice site was a breath of fresh air. I know from previous googling journeys that they seem to know what they're talking about. Best of all, they have a RoR sample app that talks to a FMP db, so I can start with that.

Into the world of Ruby!

Labels: filemaker, python, ruby

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