Recently I’ve been noodling with Django, a Python-based web application framework that’s comparable in many ways to Ruby on Rails. It appeals to me for a variety of reasons. Python has been my language of choice for several years, and going forward I expect it to help me build bridges between the worlds of LAMP and .NET. Django’s templating and object-relational mapping features are, as in RoR, hugely productive. And Django’s through-the-web administration reminds me of a comparable feature in Zope that I’ve always treasured. It’s incredibly handy to be able to delegate basic CRUD operations to trusted associates, who can use the built-in interface in lieue of the friendlier one you’d want to create for the general public.

The recommended way to deploy Django is to run it under mod_python, the Apache module that keeps Python interpreters in memory for high performance. But a lot of popular web hosting services don’t support that arrangement. For example, I just signed up for an account at BlueHost, the service used by the instructional technologists at the University of Mary Washington, and I looked into what it would take to get Django working in that environment.

Despite helpful clues it still took a while to work out the solution. In the process I reactivated dormant neurons in the parts of my brain dedicated to such esoterica as mod_rewrite and FastCGI, but I’d rather have been working with Django than working out how to configure it.

By way of contrast, setting up WordPress — a more well-known and popular application — was a one-click operation thanks to Fantastico, an add-on installer for the cPanel site manager.

I’ve heard it said that a compelling screencast is one key factor influencing the adoption of a new web-based application. One-click install in shared hosting environments has to be another. For a while, anyway, until the virtualization juggernaut gives everyone the illusion of dedicated hosting.