Web2py In Python

web2py was launched in 2007 and now, after three years of continuous de- velopment, we have reached a very much needed third edition of this book. During this time web2py has managed to win the affection of many knowl- edgeable users and developers who share its goals and have contributed to make significant improvements.

I would like to acknowledge and especially thank a few of those major con- tributors: Jonathan Lundell (new routes), Thadeus Burgess (new template), Nathan Freeze (validators and authentication), and Timothy Farrell (new web server). There is a more complete list in Chapter 1. Our collective effort has created one of the most fully-featured Open Source web frameworks in exis- tence.

I originally started web2py as a teaching tool because I was very concerned about the growth of the digital divide and the obstacles this creates for the free flow of information. The ability to build good quality web applications, fast and efficiently, is of critical importance to enable more people to interact with the Internet in a meaningful way and prevent the biggest players from monopolizing information. This was my motivation for creating web2py, and it remains just as valid and even more important today.

In general, the purpose of any web framework is to make web development easier, faster and prevent developers from making mistakes, especially in

28 web2py enterprise web framework 3rd edition

matters related to security. In web2py we address these issues with our three main goals:

Ease of use is the primary goal for web2py. For us, this means reducing the learning and deployment time. This is why web2py is a full-stack framework without dependencies. It requires no installation and has no configuration files. Everything works out of the box, including a web server, database and a web-based IDE that gives access to all the main features. The API has been simplified to just 12 core objects, which means it is easier to work with and memorize. We have worked hard to make web2py as unrestricted as possible; you can use a wide range of the most popular web servers and databases and always have access to the full power of the Python language.

Faster development is the secondary goal. Every function of web2py has a default behavior (which can be overridden). For example, as soon as you have specified your data models, you will have access to a web-based database administration panel. As soon as you add controller actions, you will have default presentation views to create forms and present data to your users in HTML, XML, JSON, RSS, etc. web2py also generates automatically forms for your data.

Security is at the heart of web2py, and our goal here is to lock everything down to keep your systems and data safe. Therefore, our database layer elimi- nates SQL Injections. The template language prevents

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