The Python programming language has grown a rather large list of these environments

though apart from a few of them such as Zope and Twisted most have a fairly small

community. It is in this context that CherryPy came into existence when Rémi Delon, its

creator, decided that he needed a tool that would work as he wanted for his own personal

projects. He then released CherryPy under a free software license so that anyone could

use, distribute, and contribute to the project.

CherryPy is a Python library implementing the HTTP protocol, which is at the very core

of the Web, using common Python idioms. On top of that CherryPy offers its own view

and concepts on how to help a developer to build web applications while being minimally

intrusive through its own simple and straightforward API.

This book will guide you through the CherryPy library with the aim of giving you the key

to make the best of it in your own web applications.

The first four chapters are dedicated to CherryPy, providing information ranging from its

history to an in-depth presentation of its key features. The rest of the book will then take

you into the development of a photoblog application. Each chapter tries to provide enough

background to allow you to ponder the why and how of each decision made. Indeed

writing software applications is not a precise science and compromises need to be

undertaken for the better, however, the truth is that writing software usually does not go

quite as planned. I have written this book with the hope that in the end you would have

learnt much more than using a Python library.