Ask HN: Framework or no framework | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Framework or no framework

1 pointzeynel16 comments

Last month I used my spare time to create a simple Django admin database that sorts lawyer names scraped with a simple spider I wrote in Python. I first tried Scrapy as suggested here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=946640 but then I realized that I could do the same directly with Python in a much simpler way. Is the same true for Django?

Do you recommend using Python to develop my app instead of learning Django? Is there a good book or online source that builds a pure Python site in a tutorial fashion?

An example: Currently the search box only searches whole last names. One person I demoed wanted to see search suggestions so that he can search for names he doesn't exactly remember the spelling. Will this be easier to implement in Django or in Python?

I am new both to Python and Django.

Thank you

I would stick with a framework especially during the initial phases of the Project, especially if you are new to Python. I am also fairly new and I found that I learned more by peeking my head in Django's codebase than any other book! Agreed it has a rather steep learning curve but is worth the effort.

You can incorporate double metaphone or soundex for partial search based on phonetic similarities. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Metaphone) there are links listed in the entry including python routines.

You can also try http://www.alchemyapi.com/ for named entity recognition (free for up to 70000) requests and peanuts for more.

I think you should stick with the framework, at least until your requirements exceed the frameworks capabilities.

There is always a simpler solution that you can one off. But is it worth your time to reinvent the wheel?

Also, I'm curious - were you able to do the same thing in Python that you did in Scrapy because you tried Scrapy first?

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. Scrapy has good documentation but still it didn't work for me. With Python it was easier and I understood what each piece of code did.

Take a look at pylons. It's like django, but it offers more flexibility in choosing which components you use. If you think you would be better off without the ORM or template engine or form library, it's easy to just not use it.

Funny, flexibility is touted as a Django benefit. It's easy to just not use all of those Django things as well.

Link to previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=946640

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