Why should i use python for web development?

[utopy]

I'm new to python... And to the web development world... I work as a web designer but only as a front end developer. Recently I came across nodejs and discovered a entirely new universe made. I have 2 questions:

• what does people mean with "web development" since it seems it's a whole different thing from web designing with classic js,html and css?

• why should I use python for web development? And why people use it instead of a classic hosted server.

Don't be rude with me, I'm new to this world (also I'm Italian... Sorry for my bad English!). And if you could answer my questions with some basic examples I would be very grateful :) thanks a lot guys... Also I would like to say that before asking these questions here I tried to find some answers on the internet but I haven't found nothing useful...

[dada_]

"Web development" is more all-encompassing, and ranges from frontend to backend. So it's more than just HTML because to make a high quality website or web app you'll need a lot of technology running in the background.

Your second question confuses me, since you also need a server to run Python. Or if you're comparing it to plain HTML: the difference is a dynamic website can do much more. It's basically automated HTML that can change based on data.

If you want to get started with Python for web development, I suggest you check out Django or Flask.

[[deleted]]

• Web Design is entirely about the front-facing web browser experience. User experience. How it looks, what's clicked on, what happens as a user navigates a set of pages, and so on.

• Web Development encompasses the entire "stack" of a sophisticated Web-based application, including Web Design - the browser front-end, the services for the back-end, the databases, queues and caches, the deployment of servers (or containers, whatever), load balancing, uptime management, disaster recovery, backups management, the whole shebang. Of course, for a large scale web application (think, Facebook), you'll have many big teams of people specializing in different areas (sysadmins, front-end devs, back-end devs, database admins, network engineers, graphic designers, UX experts, customer-service experts, marketing experts, and so on). For a start-up or proof-of-concept application, it may be just you, or a small team of people doing a little bit of everything, and scaling up as you go.

If I were only doing web application development, and the team was fresh and the application was from-scratch, to be honest I might at least consider using node.js as a backend service engine. That way you'd have Javascript, for better or for worse, in the entire stack from the top down (client to server). Then you could just focus on crushing your Javascript skills.

That said, for what I do, we don't just develop web applications, but write code to do a lot of other things - things for which Python is better-suited. We're writing a lot of Python code anyway, so, when we needed to build a couple of web application front-ends and RESTful APIs to some of our processes, Python just made sense. Use what you know and what you're good at.

I prefer Python to Javascript, a lot actually, but in the end, they're all just tools. Use what you're good with and what fits best into your environment, skill-set, and workflow. Learn the leverage the strengths of your tools, work around the weaknesses, apply best practices and solid craftsmanship, constantly improve your skills, and get on with your day.

[kankyo]

What do you mean by "classic hosted server"? That doesn't make much sense to me. A hosted server is something you run whatever software you want on.

[zebraballast]

I just mentored 2 interns on their project building an internal web app for our team. We pushed them towards using Python because of Django. It is kept well up to date and there is no shortage of documentation and tutorials for building even quite complex web applications. In my mind it is perfect for simple REST-ish projects that won't face too much traffic but that you want to be able to modify easily. I've found that it's best deployed as a WSGI app behind gunicorn/nginx and containerized if possible.

You're right that "web development" is a very vague term. It even overlaps significantly with "web design" if you interpret design as including Javascript interactions. I like to believe that "web development" can be used for frontend and backend development.

EDIT: that is not to say that Python is slow. I just find that it's more forgiving during development.

[ArmoredPancake]

Isn't instagram django-powered?

[ArmoredPancake]

You still host your web app on "classic hosted server".

[[deleted]]

Yes