Jean-Paul Calderone wrote:
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:49:46 -0500, Steve Holden <steve@holdenweb.com> wrote:
Cary Hull wrote:
Hey, I think some Twisted related sessions at PyCon would be great. Based on what's been discussed so far, I would like to humbly suggest the following (kind of breaking it down):
1) Simple line based chat server/client. 2) Same thing except using AMP. 3) twistd and plugins
These are things I would really like to get to, but I'm pretty sure half an hour isn't going to cover it. Maybe we should be thinking BOF instead, then we can take an evening over it under less stressful conditions (and, who knows, even drink a beer or two in the process).
Maybe I can get you to go a little bit further than that in restricting what you'd like to see covered.
Aah, sweet sanity! Sorry about the delay in my reply, I wanted to wait until I could do this post justice (and it's not like PyCon is tomorrow).
Off the top of my head, and only continuing until I get bored with making this point, here's what a "Twisted" session could cover:
* event driven programming
Please. I've used event-driven scenarios in GUI frameworks, but I've never seen anything (please note: this does *not* imply that nothing exists) that makes clear the relationship between the Twisted reactor and the code surrounding it.
* Deferreds (making them; using them; debugging them; defgen; locks/semaphors)
These are in essence the fundamentals, no? A complete picture of the lifetime of a failed and a successful deferred would, I feel, go a long way towards filling in the picture. Plus how deferreds can interact with each other?
* core reactor APIs
This too should go into the "must know" category, right?
* scheduling
If we could cover everything up to this point I'd be happy. Like you I think it's important to limit the scope if we want to achieve something worthwhile, and I can't spend *all* my PyCon time on Twisted. It will be up to you guys to make it enjoyable enough to keep me there :-) Hopefully with community guidance I can lay the foundations for a mechanism (a pedagogy, if you will) that many people can use to flesh the rest out.
* implementing existing (TCP; UDP; IP) protocols
What, you mean they aren't all implemented yet? :-)
* designing new (TCP; UDP; IP) protocols
Good. That Twisted can get access to the raw network layer is something I wasn't aware of.
* using existing protocols in twisted core
Probably more essential than protocol design and implementation, I'd have thought.
* integrating a protocol implementation with cred
To make it an authenticated protocol? Haven't met cred yet.
* process control/interaction
I suppose one of the issues with twisted, like other asynchronous frameworks, is that you can screw things up really badly just by thoughtlessly blocking somewhere inside a handler. So this is probably important.
* implementing a realm * implementing credentials/checkers * writing services * writing plugins (twistd; lore; cred) * handy general-purpose python utilities * adding new kinds of event sources to the reactor * gui/pygame/etc integration * threading * using SQL databases * Perspective Broker * writing unit tests * using trial * extending trial
While the above remaining core issues are all valuable, I don't see us getting to them at PyCon.
Wandering outside of the core of Twisted:
* serving web pages * running a chat server * extending the chat server * jabber (jabber; jabber; jabber; sasl; jabber)
I gather you think jabber is significant?
* marking up documentation
The more widely this knowledge is disseminated, hopefully, the better the documentation will be.
* dns servers and clients * usenet servers and clients * ssh/sftp clients/servers * telnet clients/servers * asynchronous terminal interaction * terminal widget rendering * smtp client/server * imap4 client/server * pop3 client/server
Are any of these the things you have in mind? Can I get you to pick a very small number of them (1 or 2 per hour at most, I suspect; some are smaller, others are quite large)? Or did you have something else in mind?
Your detailed knowledge of the structure of Twisted lays bare the huge amount of work that *could* be done. However, there may be perfectly adequate existing materials on some or all of these topics, and I am happy to be pointed towards them. regards Steve -- Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/