Two years it looks like.  I certainly dropped that ball.  Sometimes it pays to be lazy though.  The original goal of this blog was to document my experience with setting up a django site.  How things have changed.  I can’t imagine why I would want to mess with django anymore.  It is all client side now.  If I even need a DB I could code just enough php to set up an api.  I could even leave authentication to openId.  I did do a project a while back implementing oauth against google calendar in php.  Maybe I’ll post some of that.  I still have some interest in python for desktop utilities, but since I recently was able to get Visual Studio downloaded at home, I could do anything I want much faster.

Well there has been quite a gap in posting here.  Things got busy at work and I pretty much abandoned my Django efforts.  Now, whenever I think about getting back to this project, I experience a full body sigh.  It seems like I am going against the flow trying to get Python/Django up on BlueHost.  At work, we have shifted more of our web development to the client side with javascript/knockout and the single page application architecture.  I am now thinking that I may not need as much beef on the server side.  I had been attracted to Django’s template system among other things, but I am no longer sure I need any of that.  I need some server side routing to handle things like oauth and database access.  I need to be able to formulate web requests and parse responses.  I had some quick desktop success with Python web page parsers, but PHP or Ruby may have tools that work as well.  BlueHost seems to be more aligned with these other technologies, so I may soon enter into a period of R&D.  If I can get a site up and running with PHP easily, I may get over my philosophical objections.

I didn’t have a chance to post on Friday, but I was able to install a local version of Python 2.7.  I unzipped the most recent release, ran the configure command with the prefix set to my $Home\local directory.  I had to create the local directory.  I ran the “make” and “make install” commands.  This installed to the folder and created the python directory downstream.  The upgrade is supposed to be better for performance, but more importantly, I now have my own site_packages folder for installing modules.  Time will tell if I can hook cgi up to this installation over the default installation.

So, step one is complete.  I have console access to my host environment.  Blue host does not have a cool wizard for Django setup, but the user forums have some good posts on this.  I will have to do some command line installs and chmods to make it work.  Blue host does allow SSH access, but I did not have a client for Windows 7.  I am a bit surprised Windows doesn’t build this in, and the field of third party candidates is pretty sketchy.  I have some experience with putty, but all the links I find are XP related.  I wasn’t sure it still worked on Windows 7.  Then there is Bitvise Tunnelier.  That doesn’t sound like anything I would want to willingly install (Worms tunnel don’t they?), but my brother-in-law had used it before.  I decided to give them a try, and so far, it looks good.  I was even able to get a Python command prompt.  I was glad python was already installed, but saddened to see it was version 2.6.6.  I have been playing with 2.7 at home.  I am not sure if I can upgrade this on my partition or not.

I don’t want to get too carried away with WordPress.  My main goal on Blue Host is to learn Django web development, but this theme did remind me of one of my early research efforts.  When trying to learn how to install the Python connector to MySQL on Windows 7, I was lead to a blog with detailed instructions.  That programmer had this same theme (twenty eleven).  At the time, I thought it looked really good and didn’t know it was a canned theme.  Imagine my surprise when my blog came out of the box looking exactly the same.  Common though it may be, the theme is simple and pleasant.  I may keep it for while.

I should mention, that I decided against MySQL in the end.  Some of the documentation is very unfriendly to people who work on Windows machines.  The connector I mention above does not have a windows installer.  Following the blog instructions, I was able to install it at work. but my home computer may have been at a different patch level, because it didn’t take.  I also had some trouble with MySQL on my home computer.

As a result, I may go with PostGreSQL for the back end.  Their python connector has a windows installer.  Early on, I may just use the SQLLite that ships with Django.  Once all the URL routing is working, I’ll experiment with a beefier database.

Word press starts up with a Hello World, but this is my first test adding a post from the admin console.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!