[wyager]

>PHP/Apache provides a very simple routing model that correlates 1:1 with the filesystem.

Might that give students a false impression of what a webserver does and is capable of doing? The students can implement the same thing themselves in a few lines of python, rather than offload most of the functionality to a monolithic and unapproachable black box like apache or nginx.

[jiggy2011]

It's useful to black box some of the things when you are first learning. The specifics of serving a request are probably not the first thing you want to teach, especially when it requires some notional understanding of threading/blocking which Apache can take care of automatically. Also mod_rewrite and .htaccess provide powerful methods of adjusting behaviour of routing and the like.

[vegggdor]

Writing web apps or servers are two different things. well, mostly ... almost, at least if you teach for productive use. especially for anyone who just started coding, a few lines of python can be a lot, so KISS.