Question

I’m looking for a suitable cross-platform web framework (if that’s the proper term). I need something that doesn’t rely on knowing the server’s address or the absolute path to the files. Ideally it would come with a (development) server and be widely supported.

I’ve already tried PHP, Django and web2py. Django had an admin panel, required too much information (like server’s address or ip) and felt unpleasant to work with; PHP had chown and chmod conflicts with the server (the code couldn’t access uploaded files or vice versa) and couldn’t handle urls properly; web2py crashed upon compiling and the manual didn’t cover that — not to mention it required using the admin panel. Python is probably the way to go, but even the amount of different web frameworks and distributions for Python is too much for me to install and test individually.

What I need is a simple and effective cross-platform web development language that works pretty much anywhere. No useless admin panels, no fancy user interfaces, no databases (necessarily), no restrictions like users/access/levels and certainly no “Web 2.0” crap (for I hate that retronym). Just an all-powerful file and request parser.

I’m used to programming in C and other low level languages, so difficulty is not a problem.

Answer 1

I think you need to be more specific about what you want to achieve, and what kind of product(s) you want to develop. A “no setup required” product may come with tons of auto-configuration bloat, while a framework requiring a small setup file could be set up in minutes, too, with much more simplicity in the long run. There is also always going to be some security and access rights to be taken into consideration, simply because the web is an open place.

Also, a framework supporting Web 2.0ish things doesn’t have to be automatically a bad framework. Don’t throw away good options because they also do things you don’t like or need, as long as they allow you to work without them.

PHP had chown and chmod conflicts with the server (the code couldn’t access uploaded files or vice versa) and couldn’t handle urls properly;

PHP is not a framework in itself, it’s a programming language. I don’t know which PHP-based framework or product you tried but all the problems you describe are solvable, and not unique to PHP. If you like the language, maybe give it another shot. Related SO questions:

• What PHP framework would you choose for a new application and why?
• What’s your ‘no framework’ PHP framework?

If you need something that runs everywhere (i.e. on as many servers as possible) PHP will naturally have to be your first choice, simply because it beats every other platform in terms of cheap hosting availability.

If I were you, I wouldn’t limit my options that much at this point, though. I hear a lot of good things about Django, for example. Also, the Google App engine is an interesting, scalable platform to do web work with, supporting a number of languages.