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I have been looking at setting up a web server to use Python and I have installed Apache 2.2.22 on Debian 7 Wheezy with mod_wsgi. I have gotten the initial page up and going and the Apache will display the contents of the wsgi file that I have in my directory.

However, I have been researching on how to deploy a Python application and I have to admin, I find some of it a little confusing. I am coming from a background in PHP where it is literally install what you need and you are up and running and PHP is processing the way it should be.

Is this the same with Python? I can't seem to get anything to process outside of the wsgi file that I have setup. I can't import anything from other files without the server throwing a "500" error. I have looked on Google and Bing to try to find an answer to this, but I can't seem to find anything, or don't know that what I have been looking at is the answer.

I really appreciate any help that you guys can offer.

Thanks in advance! (If I need to post any coding, I can do that, I just don't know what you guys would need, if anything, as far as coding examples for this...)

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Python is different from PHP in that PHP executes your entire program separately for each hit to your website, whereas Python runs "worker processes" that stay resident in memory.

You need some sort of web framework to do this work for you (you could write your own, but using someone else's framework makes it much easier). Flask is an example of a light one; Django is an example of a very heavy one. Pick one and follow that framework's instructions, or look for tutorials for that framework. Since the frameworks differ, most practical documentation on handling web services with Python are focused around a framework instead of just around the language itself.

Nearly any python web framework will have a development server that you can run locally, so you don't need to worry about deploying yet. When you are ready to deploy, Apache will work, although it's usually easier and better to use Gunicorn or another python-specific webserver, and then if you need more webserver functionality, set up nginx or Apache as a reverse proxy. Apache is a very heavy application to use for nothing but wsgi functionality. You also have the option of deploying to a PaaS service like Heroku (free for development work, costs money for production applications) which will handle a lot of sysadmin work for you.

As an aside, if you're not using virtualenv to set up your Python environment, you should look into it. It will make it much easier to keep track of what you have installed, to install new packages, and to isolate an environment so you can work on multiple projects on the same computer.

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Thank you for your answer. I had thought about deploying a framework, but didn't want to unless it was necessary. (All the documentation I have read has been riddled with references to frameworks) When deploying a WSGI application, is it almost like deploying a compiled program? I know PHP is interpreted, but the Python examples seem to indicate that it operates almost like a compiled program. - Sorry, just did some more reading and it said that Python is interpreted.
Python is indeed interpreted, but the model of serving requests is different from in PHP. In Python, a worker process loads the code into memory, does all the setup, imports required libraries, etc. before any requests are served. Then the request comes in and hits the webserver, and it's handed off to the already-running worker process, which responds and gives the response back to the webserver. In PHP, a request comes in and then the PHP application is loaded, runs, responds and then shuts down totally, every time.
Got ya, I really appreciate the insight you have given me for getting the project of mine up and going!
That Apache is a very heavy application is largely a myth that has been propagated over time due to issues that existed in mod_python. When configured appropriately for a Python web application Apache/mod_wsgi can use as little resources as a WSGI server such as gunicorn and because gunicorn doesn't support proper multithreading, Apache can actually use less resources as gunicorn is forced to use multiple processes to handle equivalent levels of concurrency as a mod_wsgi configuration using threads. Go watch lanyrd.com/2013/pycon/scdyzk for further information.
Another article worth reading is ianbicking.org/blog/2008/01/what-php-deployment-gets-right.html and also watch lanyrd.com/2012/pycon/spcdg for more about comparing WSGI server overheads.

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