This post is meant to orient the agile Java developer to Python. It’s not meant to be either representative or exhaustive of Python’s offerings in any of these areas, and its very much based on my own experience coming to Python from Java.

Although I’ve used many Web based applications that employ tagging, I’ve yet to create an application of my own with this feature. But now, I have two potential projects on the horizon that could benefit from tagging, and I’m thinking about how to best implement this, both in the database and user interface layers.

So, I thought I would explore how to implement tagging in my own applications, from scratch, and write about them on this blog. Therefore, I won’t pretend I have all the answers–or even necessarily any good answers–but I will simply be trying to think through how to approach implementing tagging, and I will welcome any constructive feedback on those thoughts.

The iBatis data mapping framework for Java, .NET and Ruby increases developer productivity by facilitating database storage at a higher level than say, JDBC, without the complexity of larger object-relational mapping frameworks. This introduction is intended to show Java developers how to quickly integrate iBatis with a legacy MySQL database.

Although AJAX is the all the buzz right now, and for good reason, you can increase your Web site’s usability in quick, simple ways that don’t require you to learn an AJAX library. To that end, I would like to point to some examples of smart Javascript and CSS tricks that some very bright and generous people have developed and made available to mere mortals like you and I.