This gets into something I've been thinking about the past few of
weeks.  The slashdotting of TurboGears has made me realize that Python
web frameworks have reached another level since the Py Web-Off in
March.  Then, people were lamenting the multiplicity of incompatible
frameworks, and wishing for a single framework with batteries included
to compete with Rails.  Now, a new generation of frameworks have
arisen (TurboGears, Django, Subway, Aquarium, and indirectly Paste)
that do this, and many of them use existing software to an extent not
previously seen.  Ironically, we're still increasing the number of
frameworks, but at least integration and code reuse is getting better.

Also, the entire word "framework" seems to be evolving.  Previously it
meant anything that parses a URL and publishes a string to the web.
Now it seems to mean an entire vertically-integrated package -- that's
what users are clamoring for.

The question for Quixote is, what does it want to be in this new era?
One option is to cede the beginners' market to TurboGears, and my
hunch is that's the best.  Aquarium's author (JJ Behrens) has
expressed willingness to do this if TG (or another) becomes the
frontrunner, and wishes such a framework existed when he wrote
Aquarium.  We can position Quixote as "a toolkit for advanced users
who want more freedom than TurboGears gives them".  That would argue
against investing in elaborate tools to create a Quixote "project"
directory: that work should go into supporting the emerging beginners'
framework instead.   Which will probably be CherryPy-based, since both
TG and Subway use CherryPy, and CherryPy has the best WSGI interface
to Paste.

This is not necessarily bad for Quixote.  CherryPy is the closest to
Quixote of any of the frameworks given its "map a directory to a
class" structure.  I don't know if Quixote influenced CherryPy in that
regard but it's possible.  The pieces for Quixote/Paste integration
are there; they just need to be packaged up.  Perhaps Quixote will
find other ways to integrate with CherryPy/TurboGears applications.

Also, I read an article recently (I think it's
http://www.groovie.org/articles/2005/10/13/python-web-framework-niches
but the site is down and neither the Google cache nor the Wayback
machine have it) saying that we should stop working on frameworks and
start working on libraries, so that applications can use than rather
than being contained by them.  I'm not totally convinced of this, but
Quixote does have several autonomous APIs (PTL, htmltext, form
library, html functions, etc) that should be marketed on equal par
with the publisher.

--
Mike Orr  or