I still think this proposal is too vaguely defined and any effort towards adding async IO support to existing batteries is premature for different reasons, first of which the inadequacy of asyncore as the base async framework to fulfill the task you're proposing.

asyncore is so old and difficult to fix/enhance without breaking backward compatibility (see for example http://bugs.python.org/issue11273#msg156439) that relying on it for any modern work is inevitably a bad idea.

From a chronological standpoint I still think the best thing to do in order to fix the "python async problem" once and for all is to first define and possibly implement an "async WSGI interface" describing what a standard async IO loop/reactor should look like (in terms of API) and how to integrate with it, see:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2012-May/015223.html
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2012-May/015235.html

From there the python stdlib *might* grow a new module implementing the "async WSGI interface" (let's call it asyncore2) and some of the stdlib batteries such as socketserver can possibly use it.

In my mind this is the ideal long-term scenario but even managing to define an "async WSGI interface" alone would be a big step forward.

Again, at this point in time what you're proposing looks too vague, ambitious and premature to me.


--- Giampaolo
http://code.google.com/p/pyftpdlib/
http://code.google.com/p/psutil/
http://code.google.com/p/pysendfile/
 


2012/9/22 chrysn <chrysn@fsfe.org>
hello python-ideas,

i'd like to start discussion about the state of asyncore/asynchat's
adaption in the python standard library, with the intention of finding a
roadmap for how to improve things, and of kicking off and coordinating
implementations.

here's the problem (as previously described in [issue15978] and
redirected here, with some additions):

the asyncore module would be much more useful if it were well integrated
in the standard library. in particular, it should be supported by:

* subprocess

* BaseHTTPServer / http.server (and thus, socketserver)

* urllib2 / urllib, http.client

* probably many other network libraries except smtpd, which already uses
  asyncore

* third party libraries (if stdlib leads the way, the ecosystem will
  follow; eg pyserial)

without widespread asyncore support, it is not possible to easily
integrate different servers and services with each other; with asyncore
support, it's just a matter of creating the objects and entering the
main loop. (eg, a http server for controlling a serial device, with a
telnet-like debugging interface).