Mailman 3 July 2001 - Twisted

[Twisted-Python] Twisted Python 0.7.0 Prerelease Testing
by Glyph Lefkowitz 05 Aug '21

05 Aug '21

hi there, folks: I'd really like to release 0.7.0 but I would like it to be at least a little bit tested before I do so. Could those of you with CVS trees check everything out and see if it performs as advertised? Deeper bugs than that will have to wait for the next release, but I'd at least like to know if it works for someone other than me. Thanks. ______ __ __ _____ _ _ | ____ | \_/ |_____] |_____| |_____| |_____ | | | | @ t w i s t e d m a t r i x . c o m http://www.twistedmatrix.com/~glyph/

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[Twisted-Python] What you thought would always last has passed you by...
by Glyph Lefkowitz 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

Apologies for the dearth of information on the mailing list and releases lately. I've been working on a new job, visiting my family, and some other things. However, I have been pouring quite a bit of effort into Twisted Python as well. The most exciting new development is Perspective Broker, the erstwhile replacement for Gloop; I'm currently starting to remove the old gloop-protocols in .web and .reality and replace them with the newer, more robust perspective protocol. Perspective Broker is more than just a more robust Gloop, though; it's a culmination of all my thinking about XML-RPC, CORBA, PyRO, and RMI. The first application that uses it to its full potential won't be available for a while, but trust me, it'll be cool :-) Chris Armstrong has been doing a first-class job taking care of some structural refactorings that needed to be done to make twisted.web and twisted.reality worthwhile; although this doesn't meet our stated release goals for 0.9.0, I really think that this release is worthy of a major version bump. Finally, in a roundabout way, the issue was raised that perhaps we should change the project's name. Twisted Python is mimsleading; it's not a distribution of python, it's a collection of things written *in* python (the convention is that other projects -- Stackless Python, Active Python, Mac Python, Jython -- are actually interpreters). Rather than attempmting to elevate the status of the somewhat dubious 'ouroboros' module, it might be better just to call the full distribution TwistedMatrix-0.9.0 on the next release, with individual modules eventually being released separately (TwistedWeb/TwistedReality/TwistedPB). Any thoughts on the name change issue? ______ __ __ _____ _ _ | ____ | \_/ |_____] |_____| |_____| |_____ | | | | @ t w i s t e d m a t r i x . c o m http://twistedmatrix.com/users/glyph

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[Twisted-Python] "Ports" vs. "Listeners"
by Chris Armstrong 19 Aug '01

19 Aug '01

I really do not like that we call our "servers" "Ports". I think a much better term would be "Listener". I've talked to glyph before about this, and he's usually been too busy to discuss it with me (at least, that's what *he* says...), so here it is on the list. What's wrong with using "Listener"? A lot of people get confused by the term "Port". When they think "Port", they don't necessarily think of "something that sits on a port, and listens for incoming connections". That's just how I understand it. Another argument against Port is that it's not only for "waiting for incoming connections" -- clients also allocate ports when they connect to remote hosts. So, even technically, Port is an inaccurate term for this class. You might find other technical details that make "Listener" slightly inaccurate, but it still just Makes Sense to most people (I'm guessing -- DavidC_, after me using the word "Port", and explaining that I'd rather prefer "listener", told me he would've immediately understood what I was talking about if I had used that term from the beginning). So, it should just be known that I am vehemently against using "Port" for this class. If you can come up with something better than Listener (and that also *makes sense* without having it explained to me first), then that's great.

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[Twisted-Python] Configuration, Persistance and Version Control
by Kevin Turner 29 Jul '01

29 Jul '01

So, Tv and itamar were on channel today, asking about Twisted philosophy, persistance, and configurability. Lacking the presence of anyone closer to the pure Twisted light, I tried to be a good little minion and make the case... But since I'm the guy who doesn't quite believe in .spl files, I wasn't able to be terribly convincing. And now I could try to play his side of the argument with you guys, but ya know, it'd be so much easier for me to just let his words do the talking. Scrollback excerpts: <itamar|home> anyone who knows how twisted's config mechanism works? <itamar|home> typically, glyph is on 24 hours a day unless I actually want to talk to a twisted developer <Acapnotic> Wait, Twisted has a config mechanism? <itamar|home> well, its server are persistent <Acapnotic> right <itamar|home> you coifgure them and then can pickle them to disk <Acapnotic> right <itamar|home> my question is: how do I configure them? <itamar|home> can this mechanism be used with other software packages? <Acapnotic> You load them up, set them, and re-pickle them. You can also set them through the interactive python interface on the telnet server, say <Acapnotic> Now somehow, Glyph claims that this is easier than having configuration files. <Acapnotic> I am not yet convinced of that, however. <itamar|home> I am <itamar|home> my software right now needs either something like that or an XML config file <itamar|home> which'll end up being a pickle equivalent anyway, so there's no point [...] <Acapnotic> itamar: Well, so far as I've been able to tell, there's not overmuch magic there. 'mkfooserver' just creates an instance of a server object and pickle.dumps it, twistd just pickle.loads it and invokes its the run() method. <itamar|home> Acapnotic: well, my configs are pretty complex <Tv> Acapnotic: But all that does is make your "config settings" into "command line settings". <Tv> I don't see it making things very easy. <Tv> And think about version upgrades. [...] <Tv> I see trouble with the approach; mostly losing the unix ubiquitousness (sp?). I can grep my config files; I store them in CVS. <Tv> DavidC_: You want every program to contain some UI or command mechanism to fully configure it. <Tv> There's a lot of things I'd wish someone would spell out about twisted. One thing is "how do I version control my configuration?" <Tv> And don't give a trivial example.. <Tv> I have multi-hundred-line config files here. <Tv> Shared between n hosts, via CVS. <Tv> I'd love to hear more of the twisted philosophy.. [...] <Tv> Personally, I have _needed_ programmability in config files many times. [...] <Tv> Acapnotic: Oh, I like version control. I wish I could put more things into it. <Tv> Have you ever screwed up a config file? <Tv> Have you ever downgraded something, and found out it won't understand the new config file, and had to recreate the config to match the older version? <Tv> The same reasons you version control source code. <Acapnotic> tv: you should post to the list at twisted-python(a)twistedmatrix.com <Tv> Acapnotic: I'm not following any more lists until I have migrated my mail to another domain :) <Acapnotic> tv: bah, you don't have to follow it, just post ;) [...] <Acapnotic> Tv: so if you want programmable config, is there a problem with just using python? In which case your configuration process is a script that does "app = pickle.load(...) app['web']. port = 8080 ; app.append(ChickenServer()) ; ... ; pickle.dump(app, ...) ? <Tv> Acapnotic: That may very well be what I'd do. But then the mechanism needs to support _both_ getting config programmatically and state from pickle, at the same time. <Acapnotic> Well, if I follow this train, there is only the state of the application, since it is persistant. That state may be changed or examined programmaticly. <Tv> I see something beautiful there, but.. <Tv> noone has yet explained persistence to me well enough to convince me. <Acapnotic> but what happens when you upgrade? heh. <Tv> What if a buggy program corrupts its state? <Tv> Then you lose your config file also. <Tv> There needs to be something else. <Tv> Something that is less volatile. <DavidC_> what do you mean? both config and state are the same thing. <Tv> No. <Tv> config changes when *I* say it changes. <itamar|home> nah, config is parsed and then "rendered" into state <Tv> program can change it's state as it wants. <Tv> Any bug in program must never change the port to bind to. <Tv> :) <Tv> I see config as sort of a factory for initial program states, if you want to put it that way. <itamar|home> lets say by mistake someone does "del serverInstace. port" <itamar|home> and then shuts down the server <itamar|home> the pickled state is now wrong <DavidC_> well that would be a bug. <itamar|home> the point is that if you have an external, version controleld config file <itamar|home> these bugs don't bite you, or even if they do at least they don't effect the configuration

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[Twisted-Python] tcp.Port
by Kevin Turner 24 Jul '01

24 Jul '01

it doesn't bother anyone else that you deal with unix sockets through something named "tcp.Port"? "TCP" has quite a specific meaning, after all, and unix sockets are neither dependant on nor a subset of TCPness... My first impulse would be to rename the tcp module to 'socket', but that would probably b0rk stuff horribly due to collisions with the standard 'socket' module. -- "The naming of hosts is a serious matter, not just one of your holiday games..." -- RFC 2100, "The Naming of Hosts"

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[Twisted-Python] TWN #4!
by Chris Armstrong 24 Jul '01

24 Jul '01

The Twisted Weekly News ======================= 4th Issue. Monday, July 23, 2001 QOTW: <radix> scripts are just usually short programs that do a very specific thing <radix> that's why a lot of us people who use interpreted languages hate it when someone calls our language a "Scripting language" ;) <radix> (I mean, look at Twisted and call it a "script" with a straight face) Welcome to the 4th issue of the Twisted Weekly News! This issue sees a new format similar to Debian weekly news, where the editor just babbles on in paragraph format. Progress this week consists mainly of new Twisted releases -- there were three patch-level releases in a period of 3 days. Other than that, not much has been going on (which is why this TWN is so short). * Twisted 0.9.1: This release saw some important bugfixes to the distributed web server, and the IRC implementation was introduced. Benjamin Bruheim also contributed an 'edna' derivative. * Twisted 0.9.2: This one had some nifty feature improvements. Glyph completely remade gtknet from scratch, with a more robust design. It is now called inGTKernet. He also made logging nicer, and reintroduced the gtk faucet and updated reality for PB. The most interesting thing for this release, though, was probably twisted.python.rebuild, which raises the potential of how dynamic Twisted can be. Basically, it's an automatic reload() interface, but oh so much more. :-) * Twisted 0.9.3: This saw a few bug fixes, as well as a parallel of inGTKernet for Tk, called tkinternet. The AOL TOC protocol implementation was officially brought into Twisted, and the debian package information was brought up-to- date. Cool Thing of the Week: twisted.python.rebuild Glyph wrote twisted.python.rebuild this week, and it's a very cool module indeed. It really opens up some possibilities for making Twisted super-dynamic. Basically it's a wrapper around reload that you mixin with your classes, and it allows updating the old code on the fly when you make modifications. I've always found Twisted incredibly cool *because* of it's dynamic nature, and this will help make it even more dynamic. Thanks Glyph! Ok, that's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Chris Armstrong <carmstro(a)twistedmatrix.com> -- Chris Armstrong carmstro(a)twistedmatrix.com http://twistedmatrix.com/~carmstro carmstro(a)dynup.net

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[Twisted-Python] ANN: I am the end of all your dreams.
by Glyph Lefkowitz 19 Jul '01

19 Jul '01

DARKNESS AT THE END OF TIME (AP): The increasingly infamous "Twisted" internet infrastructure suite from Twisted Matrix Laboratories got another revision today, at version 0.9.1. During a routine rearranging of the web-site in preparation for the release, the software's much touted "ability to destroy the sun" was accidentally triggered, causing the star at the center of our solar system to implode violently and extinguish itself. Prepared for just such an eventuality, Chris Armstrong -- a spokesperson for Twisted Matrix -- announced that the "enterprise edition" of Twisted-0.9.2 will "come packaged with three free `ability to restore the sun' support incidents, for the modest price of 3 quintillion standard galactic credits". While many were quick to cast the solar vandals in a poor light, a little-known, but influential, political group, the "Pittsburgh Society of Underwriters", promptly made a public statement in Twisted's defense; that "far graver threats to freedom and whitespace exist than those within our small planetary orbit". A spokesperson for the group, identified only as "Tim" said at a press conference (in a twangy, metallic voice), "Space holds a terrible power". Chief Reality Engineer Allen Short could not be reached for comment, but sources close to the Matrix claim he was off-planet, visiting Hornclausica IV, the enigmatic homeworld of Prolog programmers. ---- This release contains a few bugfixes for twisted.spread, a more stable spreadable webserver, an actually functional IRC server. Additionally the tm.com website has been reorganized slightly (finally pythonic.org has a different frontpage... ^_^). I'd like to ask that anybody looking for something fun to do with twisted start trying to break pb, especially its security. I'm curious how it will hold up to a real focused onslaught. Until next time... ______ __ __ _____ _ _ | ____ | \_/ |_____] |_____| |_____| |_____ | | | | @ t w i s t e d m a t r i x . c o m http://twistedmatrix.com/users/glyph

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[Twisted-Python] TWN #3!
by Chris Armstrong 17 Jul '01

17 Jul '01

The Twisted Weekly News ======================= 3rd Issue. Monday, July 16, 2001 QOTW: <lyn:#lisp> making things fast generally seems to involve trading space for time <dan`b:#lisp> not so! you're thinking like a typical lisp programer <dan`b:#lisp> you can also trade correctness, like any self-respecting C hacker Welcome to the 3rd issue of the Twisted Weekly News! This issue was slightly late due to the absent-mindedness and exhaustion of the author. = Progress = There have been a few interesting developments this week. * Twisted 0.9.0: The latest version[1] of Twisted was released early last week! congrats to Glyph for doing a *huge* refactoring on the Twisted directory hierarchy for this release. * Twisted IRC: An implementation of a Twisted IRC server slipped between the cracks this week, with not very much fanfare. I tested it out, and I could log on with x-chat and do some basic IRC things. Very cool! * The Twisted Philosophy FAQ: Chris Armstrong wrote the Twisted Philosophy FAQ[2] this week. Glyph gave a word of approval on the FAQ and made Chris a very happy boy. ;-) * Twisted banana ports: Allen Short, in a cloud of smoke, ported[3] banana to Mozart/Oz and Common Lisp. This is finally opening up Twisted to be a cross- language standard. = Mailling List Activity = There's been some interesting activity this week. Here's a summary. * Is everything speeding up, or am I slowing down?: Glyph posted[4] one of his signature long, revealing posts about what's been going on in his life and the life of Twisted. He revealed that he is with a company named Ninjaneering, and may be using Twisted there in his job. He also said that they agreed to leaving the copyright in his name, so us Twisted folks don't have to worry about those corporate bastards. ;-) Finally, he requested that the Twisted developers start concentrating more on documentation. Twisted is coming more into the public eye, and we need to look good. * Seamless Information Space: Jason Asbahr had a few comments[5] on some philosophical[6] ideas behind information management. * OpenCyc: Jason Asbahr posted[7] about a meeting he had with some of the people involved in the OpenCyc[8] project, and what it boils down to is that he wants to integrate OpenCyc with Twisted. This would lead to some interesting developments, especially for Reality. Chris Armstrong replied[9] with a pointer to another project with interesting Ontological goals that has produced a few papers on ontology in online games. * twisted.protcols.toc: It seems z3p has been developing a TOC protocol implementation for Twisted behind our backs! TOC is one of the protocols that the AOL Instant Messenger uses. This is the Cool Thing of the Week, so see below for more information. = Cool Thing Of the Week: = Twisted TOC z3p, who usually hangs out on #python@ircnet, has been development a TOC protocol implementation for Twisted. This is a very interesting and exciting development. The server portion of the protocol is functional, and after he irons out some of the issues with that, he'll implement the client part. The client is of special interest to a few of us Twisted folks, as it will probably be useful for AIM connectivity through Instance Messenger. The code is available here[10] (That module belongs in the twisted/protocols directory) and a unit test here[11] (which goes in twisted/test). A round of applause for z3p for this unexpected and appreciated contribution! Ok, that's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Chris Armstrong[12] References [1] http://www.twistedmatrix.com/downloads/Twisted-0.9.0.tar.gz [2] http://www.twistedmatrix.com/page.epy/twistedphil.html [3] http://www.twistedmatrix.com/users/washort/ [4] http://www.twistedmatrix.com/pipermail/twisted-python/2001-July/000123.html [5] http://www.twistedmatrix.com/pipermail/twisted-python/2001-July/000129.html [6] http://www.twistedmatrix.com/pipermail/twisted-python/2001-July/000131.html [7] http://www.twistedmatrix.com/pipermail/twisted-python/2001-July/000121.html [8] http://www.opencyc.org [9] http://www.twistedmatrix.com/pipermail/twisted-python/2001-July/000122.html [10] http://www.z3p.f2s.com/download/code/twisted/toc.py [11] http://www.z3p.f2s.com/download/code/twisted/test_toc.py [12] carmstro(a)twistedmatrix.com -- Chris Armstrong carmstro(a)twistedmatrix.com http://twistedmatrix.com/~carmstro carmstro(a)dynup.net

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[Twisted-Python] twisted.protcols.toc
by z3p 17 Jul '01

17 Jul '01

I've been talking about this in #python for a while, and I finally got around to doing it. It works as a TOC server, but only implements IM and the buddy list right now. It doesn't authenticate to the big AIM server, but there is a function (TOC.authenticate()) that gets called to check if the user can log in with the username and password given. No client in the file yet, I'm going to finish all the server options first, and then do the client. URL: http://www.z3p.f2s.com/download/code/twisted/toc.py Drop it in twisted/protocols, and creating mktocserver was easy, just stole it from mkircserver. -z --------------------- (o_ z3p(a)z3p.org //\ www.z3p.org V_/_ "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." - Animal Farm, George Orwell

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[Twisted-Python] Traceback
by j.her＠t-online.de 14 Jul '01

14 Jul '01

10/Jul/2001 20:07 CDT [-]: Traceback (most recent call last): 10/Jul/2001 20:07 CDT [-]: File "/home/jh/lib/python/twisted/internet/main.py", line 163, in doSelect 10/Jul/2001 20:07 CDT [-]: why = getattr(selectable, method)() 10/Jul/2001 20:07 CDT [-]: File "/home/jh/lib/python/twisted/internet/process.py", line 220, in doWrite 10/Jul/2001 20:07 CDT [-]: return CONNECTION_DONE 10/Jul/2001 20:07 CDT [-]: NameError: There is no variable named 'CONNECTION_DONE'

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