What is a Python Framework?

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By Vijay Singh Khatri

Python needs to be your go-to programming language when it comes to providing robust software or web applications. Python has its fair share of frameworks, which makes the development of projects much easier, and developers can wrap up the project in a short time. The primary use of the framework is to provide developers with the ease of developing an application. They come with the automatic implementation of redundant tasks, allowing developers to focus on application logic rather than a repetitive element.

Python, as we said, has its own share of frameworks, and that’s what we are going to explore today in this article. In this article, we are going to answer some common questions about Python and its framework. Along the way, we will also discuss how Python is a better choice as a programming language and what limitations you need to keep in mind when working with Python. So let’s get started, shall we?

What Is Python?

Python is one of those programming languages which is considered suitable for building general-purpose applications. This means you can create almost anything using Python, but should you be doing it? That’s a question worth pondering some time. The good thing about Python is that it comes with the support of high-level data structures, dynamic typing, dynamic binding, and other features, making it the first choice for many developers. Moreover, you can also find scripting or, in some cases, glue code that allows the connectivity of various components together so they can work in unison.

Python includes thousands of third-party modules available in the Python Package Index. It can be used to provide popular standards based on the level of expertise required for the project.

History of Python

The first-ever development of Python took place in the 1980s by Guido van Rossum. Since then, we have seen Python advance as an open-source programming language. Rossum started the project as a hobby because he was looking for a way to keep himself occupied during the holidays of the Christmas season in 1989. Python is the successor of the ABC programming language and comes with the ability to do exception handling. Rossum was already a part of the team that helped in the development of ABC.

During that time, he did see some issues with ABC but didn’t think about making changes to it due to the number of features it came with. He eventually extracted out the syntax of ABC along with its good features, fixing the issues he found earlier to create a great scripting language that we now know as Python. The name Python was inspired by the BBC television show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” which Rossum adored.The language was released to the public in 1991 and used a much smaller code to express more significant concepts. On the other hand, when compared to the logic and design philosophy of C++ and Java, it was found that Python was more refined. The main areas of requirements that Python filled were code reliability and developer productivity.

In the year 2018, Rossum finally stepped down from his position as the language’s Benevolent Dictator for Life and joined the Pep 13, which is a steering council that serves as the leadership of the language.

Benefits of Using Python In Programming

Python is known for its reliability, scalability, portability, and speed. But these are just some of the benefits you get with Python, and they are common in modern-day programming languages. Given below are the advantages of using Python, which make it stand out from the rest of the crowd.

Multipurpose Programming language

Python can be used to create a number of applications with a wide array of implementations and usages. You can use the frameworks of Python in website development and even create desktop GUI development. Python is the one programming language that can be used in almost all forms of technology.

Boosts Developer’s Productivity

When it comes to developing web projects, productivity is the one thing that every company wants to increase. The Python ideology is to follow the conventions and avoid repetitive tasks, which can take a lot of time. This results in Python’s being a highly productive language. On the other hand, it is dynamically typed, making it easier to code and even debug when there’s an error.

Immense Library Support

Python’s most significant advantage is the number of third-party libraries that come with its support. A Python library is nothing but a pre-written piece of code that can be included in your project and even in the collection of modules. The libraries are written in C, and they come equipped with syntax, tokens, and core modules.

Portable Programming Language

Python was developed to be portable, and it is supported by every operating system that is present in the IT sector right now. There are no modifications required for you to run the code on multiple OSs. Likewise, Python also comes with excellent integration support for various programming languages, such as GitHub’s page for CPython.

Easy To Learn

Coding in Python is reliable and user-friendly as well; Python has a neat, clean, and well-structured design for ease of understanding and use. Due to its flexibility, readability, and high interpretation power, Python has become the easiest object-oriented language not just to learn but even to code in as well.

10 Top Python Frameworks to use In 2022

So now let’s move to the main section of this article, which is a list of the top 10 Python frameworks to use in 2022. Python is well known for having tonnes of powerful frameworks that come loaded with a number of options that work well with your projects. So if you are thinking about creating a high-performing web solution in 2022, then try these Python frameworks to get the most of the work done in a short time.

1. Django

When working with Python, there is a sure shot that you heard about one framework that developers couldn’t stop talking about. It’s called Dango. Django is an open-source Python framework that allows developers to create complex applications while allowing them to code at a much faster rate. You get to use rapid development and deployment of application programming interfaces. The aim behind the creation of Django was to streamline the web development process by offering multiple robust features to developers.

Features

  • It comes with a built-in authentication system.
  • The URL system that comes with Django is quite strong, and yet it is pretty simple to use.
  • Django uses an object-oriented programming language database, which comes with an excellent recovery rate in data storage.
  • The intuitive admin interface is the one that enables developers to edit, delete, and add new components according to their needs.

2. Pyramid

Pyramid is a more mature, feature-filled Python framework. It comes with a wide range of uses that includes websites, web APIs, and other applications where you need to work with Python. Pyramid is well known for its flexible, modular architecture, extensibility, and testability. You can find the fantastic Python community backing up the Pyramid framework on various community-based forum websites such as Stack Overflow and other IRC channels. There are a number of different frameworks which complement the Pyramid.

Features

  • A developer can use Pyramid to generate URLs for routes, resources, and even static assets.
  • It can be used to invoke a view callable when a request reaches your application.
  • Third-party developers can make changes to the behaviour of applications without having to modify the source code.

3. Flask

Flask is going to be in the top three for any Python developer, and this is because Flask is a lightweight WSGI micro-framework that is used for full-stack web development in Python. When it comes to developing an application in a short time, you can build a highly efficient and scalable development environment.

Flask provides integrated unit testing with secure cookie support. It is a full-fledged web development framework that gives simplicity and productivity with Google App Engine support. One of the things that makes Flask stand out from the rest of the competition is that you don’t need to have a particular set of library extensions to make it work; you can take any Python library or tool and use features of the Flask framework.

Features

  • It is compatible with the Google App Engine.
  • Both the Jinja2 template and the Werkzeug WSGI toolkit are available in Flask.
  • Flask supports cookies from client-side work.
  • It is based on Unicode and can handle HTTP requests.
  • You can use the framework and plug any form of ORM into it, and it will work fine.

4. CherryPy

This is an object-oriented web-based framework that makes it possible for the developers to wrap up the development of the application in a short time. It is considered to be one of the oldest frameworks designed for Python, with the first version being released in 2002. The three pillars of CherryPy are adaptability, reliability, and security.

The framework also provides a production-ready WSGI thread-polled web server. In addition to this, it is used by developers in order to create web applications that take advantage of portable databases. Some of the best-known companies all over the globe are using CherryPy; some of them are Netflix, Hulu, and Indigo Domotics.

Features

  • It comes with a built-in tool for static content, encoding, and even caching.
  • It gives you the support of testing and coverage.
  • It can be used to run multiple HTTP sessions alongside each other.

5. Grok

The Zope toolkit technology was the one that created Grok for Python web development. In addition to this, you also get an agile development utility for the developers, which enables them to concentrate on the fundamental principles of the convention without having to worry about security. Grok is also an open-source framework, and it is designed to scale up the process of web development. Likewise, it is the choice of many proficient web developers who want to use the Python framework to get their work done.

Features

  • It provides a stable ground for developers to build extensive and powerful web applications.
  • Grok uses a strong object database to provide storage for the application data.
  • You get building block-type modules along with other assets that can be used to build custom web applications.
  • Lastly, it has integrated security measures that make sure your application is not cutting any corners in terms of safety.

6. Bottle

The Bottle is a Python framework for microweb development that makes use of WSGI.This makes the bottle quite a lightweight, simple and fast framework to use. Moreover, it is distributed as a single file module and requires developers to have a standard Python library. Bottle features are pretty similar to those of a flask. As a result, it makes the switching between these two frameworks almost seamless. If you are looking for a way to quickly create a landing page or a prototype for an app, then Bottle can be of great help to you as it can build these small-scale projects with minimal knowledge of web-based programming. The list of features that Bottle brings to the table is more focused on the readability and simplicity of the code.

Features

  • The size of the bottle framework is as small as 50-60 KB; it doesn’t have tons of features, but what it comes with is more than enough in most cases.
  • It is pretty easy to deploy in the first place, and you can install it using the global index of Python packages (PyPl). You can even run it with no configuration.
  • A developer only needs basic knowledge of Python and web development to take advantage of Bottle.
  • It is faster than most of the other complex and more powerful Python frameworks.
  • Lastly, it is still under development as many of the plugins are being added to it every month.

7. Dash

Dash was released in 2017 and is a relatively new framework for Python developers. It is used for the data visualisation interfaces. It is an ideal framework that can be of great help to data scientists who are looking to build analytical web applications. To use it for creating web applications, you don’t need to be a master of web development; even basic knowledge of web development will do just fine. Moreover, Dash is also famously used for developing mobile-friendly applications.

Features

  • Dash has extensive error handling, and it also allows customization of the framework to a much greater extent than any other framework on our list.
  • The user interface element of Dash is pretty easy to understand; it has dropdown sliders with the addition of van graphs.

8. Web2Py

Web2Py is another open-source full-stack web development framework that allows developers to create components of their web applications rapidly. Many tech companies will hire a developer who can take full advantage of Web2Py’s cross-stage framework support and run multiple frameworks in a single application.

You can also use Web2Py for rearranging the web development process via an SQL database, web server, and the online interface. Besides this, you can make changes such as constructing a new module by altering the existing module of the application straight from the web browser. Web2Py is used more for teaching purposes. As a result, many of the developers can’t find it too valuable for real-world scenarios.

Features

  • You don’t need any setup or establishment to use Web2Py.
  • This framework can run on Mac OS, Linux, Unix, Windows, Google App Engine, and more.
  • It takes care of most of the widely known vulnerabilities that a developer needs to be vigilant about when creating an application.

9. TurboGears

TurboGears is the one framework that can be considered as a full-fledged working framework, or sometimes it can also be used as an add-on library for other frameworks. One of the best things about TurboGears is its architecture, which gives it ease of maintenance and better scalability options. The name suggests one thing, and that is that it can be used to turbocharge your website, meaning you can speed up the loading time of your website using this framework.

This will be done by giving a boost to the performance and productivity of your website. The documentation is hard to navigate, but it does have all the API documentation you need. Along with that, you get a sample application to see how TurboGears works.

Features

  • This framework is compatible with WYSIWYG editors.
  • You can use regular expressions via text. routes extension to complete the task
  • TurboGears has real multi-database support.
  • FormEncode is already present for validation.
  • You can paste script templates for the creation of the project.

10. Sanic

Sanic is one of the Python frameworks that uses async/await syntax in order to make development much faster when compared to the other frameworks. Thus, you can use it to deploy unblockable Python code, which makes the running of an application much quicker. Likewise, Sanic comes with the support of ASGI, making it compatible with ASGI web servers along with WSGI servers. It is based on a Python 3.7+ web server.

Features

  • It comes with variations of logging, which include access and errors.
  • It has class-based views.
  • Handlers with easy-to-apply decorators
  • You can take advantage of plugin support.
  • Lastly, dot-notation can be used for modifying the configuration object.

Limitations of Using Python Programming

Given below are some of the shortcomings of using Python, which you need to take care of.

Incompatibility of Two Versions

For beginners, it isn’t easy to find which version they should pick up and start their learning journey. Python 3. x is considered to be the future-ready version of Python. At the same time, Python 2. x is described as a legacy version. A more significant number of developer groups chose Python 2 over Python 3. Moreover, most of the popular Python frameworks that you will need to develop projects work only on Python 2.

Additional Testing

Python, as we said earlier, is a dynamically typed programming language. As a result, it does not require programmers to define the type of a variable when they are declaring it. As a result, writing the code becomes much more manageable. But this leads to a number of critical bugs or defects that emerge at the time of compilation because the developer didn’t use variable type. This causes developers to use a number of tests to additionally identify and fix the bugs that are found during the runtime.

Weak Mobile Computing

Mobile web pages are on an inevitable decline, which results in companies creating their own mobile apps. Developers need to write code for mobile apps in a specific programming language based on the targeted mobile platform. In this case, developers cannot take advantage of their knowledge of Python programming to create an app using it. If they do want to use Python for coding a mobile application, they will need the Kivy framework, which provides cross-platform mobile app usage with Python.

No Options To Embed Block Comments

When you are writing code for a complex application, you need to make your code more manageable and readable. Many programming languages go with the deactivation of a specific section of the code or a block of code by using block comments. But in Python, you cannot do it, so they have to do it by writing comments for each line of code.

Wrapping Up

This is what Python is all about, and the ten Python frameworks listed above can be used in any project to get the job done quickly. These frameworks are relatively simple to integrate with your code, and they will work flawlessly to assist you in completing the project in a timely manner. Furthermore, these frameworks will make it easier for you to save time by manually writing down the code for repetitive tasks, allowing you to focus on other important aspects of your development cycle. Have fun coding!!

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