Sergey Lipnevich

I've recently installed a Trac instance on Windows and Apache 2. Initially I had it running under mod_python, with very good results. Just today I've switched to mod_wsgi. An elegant and very small module easily replaced its big brother with no loss in functionality or scalability. Installation was trivial: just copy the module file into modules/. Configuration was straightforward, following a single short Wiki page. After installation, I conducted some non-scientific tests, and both response time and memory consumption were roughly equivalent for mod_python and mod_wsgi. For the latter, it's a significant achievement. Approximately seven years that separate the two projects' start dates didn't go in vain of course: I believe mod_wsgi contains condensed experience that was accumulated while building the solid and still very much relevant mod_python (that I personally have been using for years). But with WSGI becoming more and more important, and with such great experience with mod_wsgi version 1.0, I'm convinced that it will take over and become the primary means of running Web applications written in Python. The biggest hurdle in mod_wsgi's path is, I think, adoption by ISPs. Mod_python never really caught on, so I'm very hopeful that mod_wsgi is much more welcome among Web host companies.

Faces is both a front-end and a calculating library for complex project plans expressed as Python code. The library is solid and allows extremely fine control over the project structure, resources, schedule, etc. UI has some very minor glitches but other than that works very well and has advanced features such as code completion and poster-printing of Gantt charts. The project also has excellent documentation. It does take some getting used to "programming" a project plan in Python, but even without knowing this language Faces will become usable in a very short time. Anyone who's not happy with making project plans in Microsoft's tool should give Faces a try.

I tried the demo of version 1.1 at http://demo.mindquarry.org/. The concept looks very appealing, but I couldn't get even simple functions to work. Creating a task took three attempts because I didn't follow the only sequence of clicks that can accomplish that. I couldn't change any of the new task's properties because of errors in JavaScript code (reported by Firebug). But again, the concept of putting together wiki, task tracking, and other collaborative tools is sound. I suggest you use Trac if you need the same functions right away.

I used suds to write a small library for JIRA ticket tracker automation. It was very easy to get started, very easy and mostly straightforward to use, and performed very well in terms of both speed and stability.