NWSGI: New release and big improvements

By Michael Foord -
NWSGI is "a .NET implementation of the Python WSGI specification for IronPython. It is implemented as an ASP.NET HttpHandler for use with IIS 6 and 7" created by Jeff Hardy. The goal is to be able to run Python applications like Django, Trac and Pylons on IronPython. It can also be used on the Microsoft Azure (cloud computing) platform.

Jeff Hardy has just released a beta of version 2.0, and explained the new features:
This is a major update to NWSGI that makes it easier to install and use and dramatically improves the management story.

So, what happened to 1.1? Originally, NWSGI 1.1 was going to be a refresh of v1.0 that supported IronPython 2.6 and fixed a few bugs. NWSGI 2.0 was going to completely overhaul large parts of the management UI and make some deeper changes to the handler itself. However, I got a week off with some rain and v2.0 progressed much quicker than expected; v1.1 was obsolete before it was even released.

So, v1.1 was dropped and v2.0 will be the first IronPython 2.6-compatible release. It’s easy to make breaking changes when you have no customers.

What’s New
  • Easier configuration. In v1.0 there were different ways to configure NWSGI depending on your configuration. Now there is only one way to do it. Some of the more ambiguous options have also been cleaned up, and new ones added to support IronPython 2.6.
  • Better management UI. IIS 7 includes a rich UI framework for developing management extensions, but doesn’t have much documentation on it. Some spelunking with reflector showed me better ways to do pretty much everything; not much of the v1.0 management code is left.
  • Performance improvements. NWSGI will now cache the WSGI callable instead of reloading it each time.
  • Other misc. fixes. I really need to get into the habit of adding a Codeplex issue for each bug so that I can keep track of what I’ve fixed.
Jeff has also made two separate blog entries explaining the major changes.
There are two ways to use NWSGI: by installing it or by using xcopy deployment. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages, but their functionality is the same.
One of the two areas to see the most changes in NWSGI 2.0 was its configuration. Some of the options in v1.0 were overloaded in strange ways; even I wasn’t entirely sure what some combinations would produce. There was also the small problem of where to put the configuration section; it varied depending on how NWSGI was installed. For v2.0, both problems needed to be fixed. Doing so required a re-think of how configuration was handled.

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