My first web app (Python): use CGI, or a framework like Django?

Question

I don’t want to burden you all with the details, but basically I’m a 2nd year compsci student with no Web dev experience.

Basically I want to create a small “web app” t

Answer 1

One way of getting to working webapp quickly is by first understanding, and then modifying, something like the App Engine "guestbook" example. This has the benefit that much of the otherwise necessary tedium of running a web server and setting up a database server (assuming you need persistence) is done for you. App Engine also provides a fairly flexible development environment. It's certainly not the only way to go, and I'll admit to bias in recommending it, but it's fairly low friction.

GCI scripting is hardly a thing of the past, though it's not what the cool kids are doing. CGI has the benefit, and the curse, of exposing more of the raw plumbing. It forces you to understand a lot about primitive (in the low-level sense) web architecture, but it's also a bit of a large bite to chew on if you have an immediate problem to solve that can solved by simpler means.