You may want to check out Micropython.
I have a few Olimex ESP8266-MOD-WIFI that I have flashed with Micropython firmware. The Olimex board has solder jumpers to select the boot mode, so constantly flashing firmware was not really an option. I just use the mod-wifi rx to receive status messages from a pic16f and simply serve a web page to show the status. It works pretty good.
I have a handful of py modules I created- ntp, telnetd, httpd, rcopy, utils, wifi, plus some other files like hostname, log.txt for logging, ssidpw file to store wifi logins. I have my own little micro unix-like system

Since you have a filesystem (about 1.4MB on my board which has 2MB spi flash), its simple to update the files. I usually leave open a terminal with a telnet connection to the board (will be at a REPL prompt to enter commands, just like being at a shell prompt), To update the py modules, I create/edit them on the pc, run netcat -l -p 8888 < myfile.py , then on the mod-wifi I type rget('myfile.py'), a few seconds later I have my new file uploaded. The pic16f simply sends a python command to log events - like log('P')\r\n to log a pump on event- the log function will prepend a time stamp and append the log file (csv format). The index.html will get the log.txt file and long poll for any updates to it.
For my web page, I use the httpd.py file to serve a single index.html (or through query strings can do some simple admin tasks). Since I don't know html/css/javascript/svg/ajax,long polling all that well, it works pretty well to change the index.html file- edit on pc, upload, refresh browser, debug in browser if needed, repeat. I'm a Python beginner also, so it took me a week (spare time) to get the httpd module working reliably.
The mod-wifi board does not have any io pins other than tx/rx brought out to the connector (there are two on the board that could be used, though), so cannot comment on how well hardware io works with Micropython. I would rather the pic16f do the real work anyway. Maybe I can get the mod-wifi to LVP program the pic16f someday.
Just a thought.